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Minced Meat and Mashed Potatoes

A dish of minced meat served over mashed potatoes with a gravy made from stock, flour, and dripping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Minced Meat and Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Chop the meat finely.

  2. Melt the dripping in a small saucepan.

  3. Add the flour and stir until smooth and brown.

  4. Add the stock and stir until it boils.

  5. Season to taste.

  6. Add the meat and heat through without boiling.

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Mash the potatoes and mix in the milk.

  2. Season to taste.

  3. Beat the potatoes until light and fluffy.

Assemble and serve

  1. Form a wall of potatoes around the dish.

  2. Pour the meat and gravy into the center.

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

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

  2. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Potato + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

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

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Cooked potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish and, when mashed and beaten, give a light, fluffy texture.
Cold meat
Provides the main filling, flavoring the gravy as it heats through.
Dripping
Supplies fat for cooking the flour and carries the savory flavor of the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth gravy when cooked in the melted fat.
Bone stock
Liquid that turns the flour and fat into a thin gravy and adds savory depth.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness to the mashed potatoes.

The step that matters

Add the meat and heat through without boiling. Boiling the meat can toughen its proteins and make the gravy separate or reduce unevenly, so gentle heating keeps the meat tender and the gravy smooth.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, milk, 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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