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A Nice Breakfast Dish

A casserole of minced beef or lamb with mashed potatoes, cream, butter, egg, and seasonings, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 143 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

A Nice Breakfast Dish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the meat

  1. Mince the cold beef or lamb.

  2. If using beef, add a pinch of powdered cloves; if using lamb, add a pinch of summer savory, along with salt and pepper.

  3. Place the meat mixture in a baking dish.

Top and bake

  1. Mash the potatoes and mix with cream, butter, and a little salt.

  2. Spread the potato mixture over the meat.

  3. Beat the egg with a small amount of cream or milk and spread it over the potatoes.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until warmed through and the potatoes are browned.

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. Clove + summer savorytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Beef + lambtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together896 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Summer savory + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold beef or lamb
Forms the savoury meat base that the casserole is built on.
Mashed potatoes
Forms the top layer that browns in the oven and gives a soft, creamy contrast to the meat.
Egg
Sets when baked, binding the topping and helping it brown.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that helps the potato topping brown and taste rich.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the mashed potato topping.

The step that matters

Bake until the potatoes are browned. The egg wash sets and the potato top browns only with enough oven time. Pulling the dish too early leaves the topping pale and the meat under it insufficiently heated through.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, summer savory, lamb, pepper, potato, cream, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, summer savory, lamb, pepper, potato, cream, butter. 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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