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Frizzled Beef

A dish of sliced dried beef cooked with eggs, milk, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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. Thinly slice the dried beef.

  2. In a bowl, beat together the eggs and milk; season with salt and pepper.

  3. Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the sliced beef and stir until it begins to curl.

  2. Reduce heat and add the egg and milk mixture.

  3. Stir until the eggs begin to thicken, then pour into a warm dish and serve immediately.

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

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  4. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried beef
Provides salty, savory flavor and a chewy texture once it curls in the hot pan.
Eggs
Set as they are stirred with heat, binding the dish into soft, tender curds.
Milk
Adds moisture to the eggs, keeping the curds softer and more tender.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps keep the beef and eggs from sticking to the pan.

The step that matters

Reduce heat before adding the eggs. Egg proteins set quickly at high heat and turn tough and rubbery. Lowering the heat lets the mixture thicken gently into soft curds.

“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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