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Meat Turnovers

A pastry filled with chopped meat, seasoned with pepper, salt, catsup, and herbs, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Meat Turnovers

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix flour and salt, then cut in butter until crumbly.

  3. Stir in cream or melted butter to form a dough.

  4. Roll the dough thin and cut into circles.

Fill and bake

  1. Place chopped meat on one half of each circle, season with pepper, salt, catsup, and herbs.

  2. Moisten the edges, fold over, and pinch to seal.

  3. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown.

  4. Serve warm or cold.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the dough's structure once mixed with liquid fat and moisture.
Cold butter
Cut in as small pieces, it creates flaky layers as it melts in the oven.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness so the dough binds into a workable mass.
Cooked meat
Forms the savory filling that the dough encloses.
Catsup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the filling, balancing the meat.
Egg
Brushed on as a wash, it promotes browning on the baked crust.

The step that matters

Pinch the edges to seal. If the moistened edges are not sealed firmly, filling can leak out during baking and the turnover can open up, so press the dough together well.

“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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