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Beef Cakes

Beef cakes are pan‑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) · 7 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mince the beef and ham together.

  2. Add the sweet herbs, pepper, and salt to the meat mixture.

  3. Beat the egg well and mix it into the meat mixture.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into cakes and brush the tops with egg white.

  2. Cover each cake with bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the cakes quickly in hot oil for about 5 minutes until golden.

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

Undercooked roast beef
Provides the main body of the cakes and their meaty flavour.
Ham or bacon
Adds salty, savoury fat that keeps the cakes moist and flavourful.
Large egg
Binds the minced meat so the cakes hold their shape.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried in hot oil.

The step that matters

Frying the cakes. Frying in hot oil browns the crumb coating quickly, so the outside crisps before the meat overheats and dries out. Oil that is not hot enough lets the cakes soak up grease and turn soggy.

“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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