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Beef Ball

A loaf of beef, bread, eggs, butter, and water baked at 300°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Beef Ball

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Hash the steak and bread as finely as possible.

  2. Stir in the eggs and melted butter.

  3. Shape the mixture into a loaf.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the loaf in a dish with a little water in the bottom.

  2. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for one hour.

  3. Slice cold for supper.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Steak
Provides the main protein, which sets firm and gives the loaf its meaty body when cooked.
Bread
Absorbs moisture and helps bind the mixture so the loaf holds its shape.
Eggs
Set when heated, binding the chopped meat and bread into a sliceable loaf.
Melted butter
Adds fat that keeps the loaf moist and adds richness as it bakes.

The step that matters

Hash the steak and bread as finely as possible.. Fine chopping spreads the meat and bread evenly through the mixture, so the loaf binds well and slices cleanly rather than crumbling.

“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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