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Beef Cakes

Beef cakes are fried patties made from minced roast beef, ham or bacon, herbs, egg, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Beef Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Make a mincemeat of the roast beef and ham or bacon.

  2. Add sweet herbs, salt, and pepper.

  3. Mix in the beaten egg and form into square cakes about ½ inch thick.

Fry

  1. Fry quickly in good dripping, coating with bread crumbs and more beaten egg.

  2. Cook for 5 to 6 minutes until golden brown.

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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

  3. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Beef + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,729 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Roast beef
Forms the main body of the cakes and provides the meaty flavor.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the cakes hold their shape while frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns during frying.
Ham or bacon
Adds salty, savory fat that enriches the flavor of the cakes.
Dripping
Conducts heat for quick frying and adds richness and browning.

The step that matters

Fry quickly in good dripping. The cakes need hot fat so the crumb coating browns quickly and seals the surface. Too little heat lets the cakes soak up grease and fall apart, while the interior stays underdone.

“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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