Skip to main content
Baking

Cold Meat

A dish made from leftover cold meat, onions, vegetables, and seasonings, fried and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cold Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Fry the onion and vegetables in a little butter until browned.

  2. Add leftover cold meat and season with coarse sea salt.

Make the gravy

  1. For gravy, use fresh vegetables for flavor and cornflour to thicken.

Coat and fry

  1. If making rissoles, croquettes, or boudinettes, prepare them the day before.

  2. Thoroughly coat the prepared meat in egg and bread crumbs, then refrigerate.

  3. Fry in hot fat for a few minutes before serving.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 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

Leftover cold meat
Forms the main body of the dish and carries its savory flavor.
Butter
Fat that browns the onion and vegetables, adding richness and color.
Onion
Browns in butter to add sweetness and savory depth.
Cornflour
Thickens the gravy by swelling in liquid as it heats.
Egg
Binds the coating so bread crumbs stick to the meat.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.

The step that matters

Coating the meat evenly. Bare patches of meat will not be sealed by egg and crumbs, so they can break open or dry out in hot fat. Chilling the coated pieces firms the coating so it holds during frying.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, butter, egg, bread. 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.

More cold meat recipes

Curry 24Hash 23Salad 20Sauce 17Croquettes 9Patties 9 See all 3 →

You might also like

Delicate CakeDelicate Cake246 recipesBoiled FrostingBoiled Frosting69 recipesCitron CakeCitron Cake68 recipesScotch CakeScotch Cake63 recipes