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Minced Meat

A dish of minced corned beef mixed with boiled vegetables and cooked in fat or water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Minced Meat

Why it works: Turnip and parsnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 590 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Minced Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the cold boiled corned beef and cold boiled potatoes finely.

  2. Add equal parts of boiled beets, turnips, carrots, and parsnips.

  3. If desired, include a small amount of cooked cabbage.

Fry

  1. If the meat is fatty, add hot water and fry for 30 minutes, stirring constantly to prevent burning.

  2. If the meat is lean, add beef fat or fat from fried salt pork and a little water before frying.

  3. Add salt if needed.

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.

  1. Turnip + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled corned beef
Forms the savoury, meaty base of the hash.
Cold boiled potatoes
Adds body and starch that helps the mixture hold together while frying.
Boiled beets
Contribute colour and a mild sweetness to the mixture.
Beef fat or fat from fried salt pork
Adds richness and helps the mixture brown and fry without sticking.

The step that matters

Stirring constantly while frying. Finely chopped mixtures with sugars from beets and carrots scorch quickly on direct heat. Constant stirring spreads the fat and heat evenly, preventing burnt patches and encouraging an even golden crust.

Swap the cabbage

The recipe marks cabbage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, potato, turnip, carrot, parsnip):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, turnip, carrot, parsnip. 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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