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Beef Cakes

Beef cakes are formed from chopped roast beef mixed with bread crumbs, onions, parsley, pepper, salt, and optionally ham or tongue, with mashed potatoes baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beef Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Chop the roast beef very fine.

  2. Mix the bread crumbs, onions, parsley, pepper, and salt.

  3. Moisten the mixture with a little dripping or catsup.

  4. Optionally, add cold ham or tongue to improve the mixture.

Shape and bake

  1. Form the mixture into broad, flat cakes.

  2. Spread a coat of mashed potatoes on the top and bottom of each cake.

  3. Place a piece of butter on each cake.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

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

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 meaty body and flavor of the cakes.
Grated bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the mixture hold together in shaped cakes.
Mashed potatoes
Add moisture and a soft coating that helps the cakes brown on the surface.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, promoting browning and flavor as it melts over the cakes.

The step that matters

Moisten the mixture with a little dripping or catsup. Too little liquid leaves the mixture dry and crumbly so the cakes fall apart, while too much makes them soggy. Adding it in small amounts lets the bread crumbs absorb it evenly and bind the cakes.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, onion, pepper, ham, potato, butter. 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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