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Podovies, or Beef Patties

Beef patties made with minced beef, flour dough, and fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,081 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Podovies, or Beef Patties

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine minced beef, pepper, salt, and shallot or onion.

Make the dough

  1. Make a dough by mixing flour, butter, egg, and milk until smooth.

  2. Roll the dough thin and cut into circles.

Form and fry

  1. Place a spoonful of the beef mixture in the center of each circle.

  2. Pinch the edges to seal and form patties.

  3. Fry the patties in hot oil until golden brown.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the savory meat filling and most of the richness of the patties.
Flour
Forms the structure of the dough that encloses the filling.
Butter
Adds fat to the dough, making it tender and helping it brown when fried.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure as it sets.
Milk
Adds moisture to the dough so it comes together smooth and pliable.

The step that matters

Pinch the edges to seal. If the edges are not sealed firmly, the filling can leak out into the hot oil and the patties can open while frying. A tight seal keeps the beef inside as it cooks.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, flour, butter, egg, milk):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, flour, butter, egg, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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