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Dried Beef, with Cream

A dish of sliced dried beef simmered in cream or milk and butter, thickened with flour and seasoned with pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Dried Beef, with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the beef

  1. Finely slice the beef.

  2. Place it in a suitable dish on the stove.

  3. Cover the beef with cold water.

  4. Let it soak until it returns to its original size.

  5. Once soft and the water is hot (but not boiling), remove from heat.

  6. Drain the water.

Make the cream sauce

  1. Pour in the cream (or milk and butter).

  2. Add a pinch of pepper.

  3. Bring to a boil.

  4. Thicken with flour mixed in a little milk.

Serve

  1. Serve on dipped toast or as desired.

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. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  3. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Dried beef (in the method)
Provides the main savory, salty flavour and the meaty bulk of the dish.
Cream
Adds richness, fat and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Flour
Its starch swells with heat and thickens the liquid into a creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken with flour mixed in a little milk. Flour mixed into a smooth slurry with a little milk disperses evenly, so the starch thickens the sauce without lumps. Adding dry flour directly to hot liquid causes clumping.

“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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