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Side-dish of Meat

A stew of leftover roast meat and fresh beefsteak thickened with a milk, flour, and butter mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Side-dish of Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Combine leftover roast meat and fresh beefsteak in a pot.

  2. Add cold water and stew for two hours or more.

Finish and serve

  1. In a bowl, mix milk, flour, butter, pepper, and salt until smooth.

  2. Near serving time, add the mixture to the pot and boil together.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Meat + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,703 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh beefsteak
Provides tender, savory beef flavor and substance to the stew.
Leftover roast meat
Adds cooked meat flavor and body to the dish.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter mixture into a smooth, creamy sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth mouthfeel.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding creaminess and mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and milk mixture to the pot. Flour lumps form if it is not fully whisked into the milk and butter before adding. Stirring it in smoothly and boiling briefly lets the starch thicken evenly into a silky sauce.

“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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