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Frizzled Beef

Frizzled Beef is a sautéed dried beef dish cooked with butter, flour, milk, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Frizzled Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chip the dried beef very thin.

  2. Melt the butter in a frying pan.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the beef and stir over medium heat for about 2 minutes, until the butter begins to brown.

  2. Dredge in the flour and stir again.

  3. Add the milk and a little pepper, stir until it boils, then serve.

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

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Provides the main savory flavor and meaty body of the dish.
Butter
Carries flavor and begins to brown, adding a nutty aroma to the beef.
Flour
Starch that thickens the milk into a smooth, creamy sauce when heated.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and adds moisture and creaminess.

The step that matters

Add the milk and stir until it boils. Flour thickens liquid only when its starch is heated with it, so the sauce needs to reach a boil. Stirring while the milk goes in keeps the flour evenly dispersed and prevents lumps.

“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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