Skip to main content
Main

Beef Au Gratin

A baked dish of chopped beef with gravy, rice, milk, egg, breadcrumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Beef Au Gratin

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Beef Au Gratin

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped beef with salt and pepper.

  3. Moisten the beef with gravy or stock and place it on a dish.

Assemble and bake

  1. Surround the beef with a border of cold cooked rice, moistened with milk and beaten egg.

  2. Sprinkle a layer of bread crumbs over the top and dot with butter.

  3. Bake in the oven until heated through and 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  5. Beef + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,265 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

Cold beef
Forms the main filling and provides the savory meat base of the dish.
Gravy or stock
Adds moisture so the beef stays tender rather than drying out in the oven.
Cold cooked rice
Forms a binding border that holds its shape and absorbs some of the milk and egg.
Egg
Helps bind the rice border so it sets lightly and holds together when baked.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden topping through browning in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat that encourages browning on the crumb topping and enriches flavor.

The step that matters

Moistening the beef with gravy or stock. Cold cooked beef dries out easily in the oven. Adding enough liquid before baking keeps the meat moist, so it stays tender while the topping browns and the dish heats through.

“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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes