Name: Meat Cakes
Ingredients: cold meat, game, or poultry; fat bacon or ham (optional); anchovy (optional); pepper; coarse sea salt; oil or butter for frying

Why it works: Meat and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 335 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Meat Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Finely mince the cold meat, game, or poultry with a little fat bacon or ham, or an anchovy.
Season the mixture with pepper and coarse sea salt, and mix well.
Form the mixture into small cakes, each three inches long, one and a half inches wide, and half an inch thick.
Fry the cakes in oil or butter until they are light brown.
Serve with good gravy, or place in a mold and boil or bake.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Meat + anchovytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together335 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,095 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,697 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ham + anchovytop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together256 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).