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Minced Steak to Put in Cans

A preserved minced steak canned with marrow fat, onions, flour, pepper, salt, and mushroom ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Minced Steak to Put in Cans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim all fat and sinews from the beef.

  2. Remove strings from the beef hearts and grind both meats using a sausage grinder.

Make the meat mixture

  1. Combine ground meat with marrow fat, minced onions, and flour in a large pot.

  2. Fry until well cooked, stirring to prevent burning.

  3. Add seasoning made from white pepper, salt, and mushroom ketchup to the meat mixture.

  4. Pack the meat mixture into clean cans, leaving some space at the top.

Seal and process

  1. Cap the cans, leaving the center vents open, and place them on trays in a retort.

  2. Close the exhaust tightly and process the cans for 1 hour and 30 minutes at 15 psi.

  3. Allow the exhaust to open slowly.

  4. Boil for 1 hour and 45 minutes at 15 psi.

Cool

  1. Remove the cans and cool them down.

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 + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  4. Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the main meat structure and savory protein body of the filling.
Beef hearts
Adds dense, meaty texture and extra body to the ground mixture.
Marrow fat
Adds fat that carries flavor and keeps the cooked meat moist and rich.
Flour
Thickens the mixture and helps bind the meat and its juices together.
Mushroom ketchup
Contributes deep savory, umami flavor to the seasoned meat.
Clear jelly from bones
Gelatin adds moisture and helps the filling set as it cools.

The step that matters

Close the exhaust tightly before processing. Processing under pressure only sterilizes the contents if the cans are sealed and the exhaust is closed. Air left in the cans or a loose seal can prevent the interior from reaching safe temperatures, risking spoilage.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, flour, mushroom, ketchup, meat):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, flour, mushroom, ketchup, meat. 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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