Skip to main content
Main

Left-over Beef-roasts

A baked casserole of leftover minced beef with onions, gravy, tomato, and mashed potatoes topped with butter, milk, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Left-over Beef-roasts

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine minced beef, onion, salt, pepper, gravy, and tomato, and mix until moist but not sloppy.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a 2-quart baking dish and smooth the top.

Make the potato topping

  1. In another bowl, mix mashed potatoes, melted butter, milk, and beaten egg, then season with salt and pepper.

  2. Spread the potato mixture over the meat in the baking dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover with a plate and bake for 1 hour.

  2. Uncover and brown the top 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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked beef
Forms the main body of the casserole and provides its savory flavor.
Cold mashed potatoes
Form the topping that becomes a soft, lightly set crust when baked.
Egg
Binds the potato topping and helps it set firm as it bakes.
Beef gravy
Adds moisture and savory depth to the meat layer.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the potato topping brown.
Milk
Loosens the potato mixture and keeps the topping creamy.

The step that matters

Brown the top before serving. Browning relies on the Maillard reaction, which needs dry surface heat. Because the dish was covered for most of the bake, the topping is moist and pale, so the uncovered browning step is what gives it color and flavor.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, pepper, potato, butter, milk, egg):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, pepper, potato, butter, milk, egg. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesPotato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes