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Baked Minced Beef

A baked minced beef dish with breadcrumbs, gravy, and optional mushrooms or eschalots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Baked Minced Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mince

  1. Mince the inside of a cold roast joint finely, keeping a moderate proportion of its fat, using as much as will suffice for the dish.

  2. Season the minced meat heavily with cayenne and mace or nutmeg, and moderately with salt.

  3. Add one or two minced eschalots and a few chopped mushrooms (fresh or pickled), or two tablespoons of mushroom catsup, if desired.

  4. Mix the mixture well with a cupful of good gravy.

Assemble and bake

  1. Transfer the mixture into a deep dish.

  2. Spread an inch-thick layer of bread crumbs over the top.

  3. Moisten the bread crumbs plentifully with clarified butter passed through a small strainer over them.

  4. Bake the mince in a slow oven for twenty minutes, or brown it in a Dutch oven.

Make the potato saunders

  1. Spread a layer of smoothly mashed potatoes, seasoned with salt and mixed with about an ounce of butter per pound, over the dish in which the saunders are to be served.

  2. Spread evenly and thickly some underdressed beef or mutton minced and mixed with a little of the gravy that has run from the joint, or with a few spoonfuls of any other; season it with salt, pepper, and a small quantity of nutmeg.

  3. Place another layer of potatoes evenly over this.

  4. Bake the dish in a moderate oven for half an hour.

Variations

  1. (Optional) Substitute fresh meat for roasted for a superior kind of saunders, which requires baking for an hour or more.

  2. (Optional) Serve sausage-meat highly seasoned in this way instead of beef or mutton.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

135Calories
3 gProtein
13 gFat
4 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Mushroom1/2 cup sliced (35g)15
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Eliza Acton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Mushroom + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,988 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Mushroom + macetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,529 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef (in the method)
Forms the bulk of the dish and gives its rich, savoury meat flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and clarified butter helps the bread crumbs brown.
Bread crumbs (in the method)
Form a crisp, browned topping that contrasts with the soft filling.
Mushroom catsup
Adds concentrated savoury, umami depth to the mince.
Eschalots
Contribute a mild onion aroma and savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Moisten the bread crumbs with clarified butter. Clarified butter is nearly pure fat, so it coats the crumbs and promotes even browning and crispness rather than sogginess; the crumbs need enough to brown well.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, mushroom, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, mushroom, nutmeg. 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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