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Breakfast Beef

A stir‑fry of thinly sliced roast beef in chili sauce, thickened with butter and flour, served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Breakfast Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef into small, thin pieces.

  2. In a pan, heat the beef slowly with chili sauce, pepper, salt, and cold water.

Thicken and serve

  1. In a bowl, rub together butter and flour with a little of the hot gravy.

  2. Add the butter-flour mixture to the beef and let it simmer until the flour is cooked.

  3. Serve the dish, garnished with pieces of toast.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Sauce + flourtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Roast beef
Provides the main meat, which is heated gently so it stays tender and does not toughen.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as its starch cooks, giving the beef a smooth, coating sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the flour blend smoothly into the hot gravy without lumps.
Chili sauce
Adds heat, tang and savory flavor to the gravy.

The step that matters

Simmering the butter-flour mixture. Flour must simmer long enough for its starch to cook; otherwise the gravy tastes raw and floury. Adding the paste to hot gravy and stirring well helps prevent lumps.

“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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