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Cold Meat Cookery

A pastry pie filled with cold meat, onion, and potato mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cold Meat Cookery

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Finely chop the meat and onion.

  2. Mash the potatoes and melt the dripping.

  3. Mix the melted dripping with the mashed potatoes.

Make the pastry

  1. Gradually knead in as much flour as the mixture will hold.

  2. Roll out the mixture like pastry and cut into square pieces.

  3. Divide the meat and onion mixture into portions equal to the number of potato pieces.

  4. Place each portion on a piece of potato paste and fold the paste over to enclose the filling.

  5. Press down the edges with the back of a knife.

Bake

  1. Place on a greased baking tray and bake at 300°F (150°C) for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked potatoes
Form the bulk of the pastry, giving it a soft, moist dough that can be rolled and folded.
Flour
Stiffens the potato mixture so it can be kneaded, rolled and hold its shape.
Dripping
Adds fat, which enriches the paste and keeps it moist and tender.
Cold meat
Forms the savoury filling that the potato paste encloses.
Onion
Adds aroma and savoury flavour to the meat filling.

The step that matters

Gradually knead in as much flour as the mixture will hold. Adding flour too quickly or in excess makes the potato dough stiff and tough, while too little leaves it sticky and hard to shape. Adding it slowly lets the cook judge the right consistency.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, potato, flour, pepper):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, potato, flour, pepper. 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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