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Beef Cakes

Beef Cakes are baked patties of chopped beef, onions, ketchup, bread crumbs, and gravy, served with mayonnaise and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Cakes

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 the mixture

  1. Chop the cooked beef and onions finely until you have 2 cups of mixture.

  2. Mix in the tomato ketchup, bread crumbs, and gravy until well combined.

Shape and bake

  1. Mold the mixture into cakes and sprinkle with additional bread crumbs.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Place the cakes on a platter.

  2. Top each with a tablespoon of mayonnaise and garnish with parsley.

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

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

  2. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked beef
Forms the main body and savory flavor of the cakes.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the mixture so the cakes hold their shape.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savory flavor to keep the cakes from drying out.
Onions
Add aroma and sweetness that build flavor as they cook.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness, acidity, and moisture to the mixture.

The step that matters

Mix in the tomato ketchup, bread crumbs, and gravy until well combined. Even distribution of the binders and liquids keeps the mixture cohesive, so the cakes hold their shape in the oven instead of crumbling or drying in spots.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, tomato, ketchup, bread):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, tomato, ketchup, bread. 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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