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Gateau of Cold Meat

A baked cake made from minced meat, bread crumbs, onion, fat, gravy, parsley, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Gateau of Cold Meat

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Grease a cake tin and cover it with bread crumbs.

  2. Mince the onion and fry it in the fat.

  3. Mince the meat and the parsley finely.

Mix and bake

  1. Mix all the ingredients well in a basin.

  2. Add the gravy.

  3. Add the beaten eggs.

  4. Pour the mixture into the cake tin.

  5. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Forms the bulk of the cake and gives it its savoury body.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the cake structure so it holds together when sliced.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set during baking to hold the cake together.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savoury flavour to the mixture.
Fat
Carries the onion flavour and adds richness to the mixture.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into the cake tin. The egg proteins set as the cake bakes, so the mixture should be evenly packed into the greased and crumb-lined tin. Uneven packing can leave air pockets and an unevenly set, crumbly cake.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, bread, parsley, egg, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, bread, parsley, egg, 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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