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Minced Beef

A dish of finely chopped cold beef mixed with mashed boiled potatoes, onion, pepper, salt, and optional broth, topped with a poached egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion 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 ↓

Minced Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the cold beef into fine pieces.

  2. Mash the boiled potatoes and add to the beef.

  3. Add the chopped onion, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  4. If available, add a little beef broth.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat the mixture in a frying pan over low heat, cooking slowly.

  2. Serve with a poached egg on top.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

Cold beef
Provides the main protein and meaty bulk of the dish.
Boiled potatoes
Mashed potato adds body and moisture that binds the minced beef.
Beef broth
Adds moisture and savoury flavour to keep the mixture from drying out.
Poached egg
Adds richness as the yolk spreads over the mixture when broken.

The step that matters

Heating the mixture over low heat. Slow heating over low heat warms the mixture evenly and keeps it moist. High heat can dry or scorch the potato and meat, and a fast, uneven heat can leave cold spots.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, pepper, 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.

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