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Dried Beef

A dish of sliced dried beef sautéed with butter, pepper, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Dried Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Shave the dried beef into thin slices.

  2. Place the beef in a frying pan and cover with boiling water.

  3. Cook over heat for 10 minutes, then drain the water.

  4. Cut the beef into small bits with a knife and fork.

Make the scramble

  1. Return the beef to the hot pan with butter and pepper.

  2. Beat the eggs and stir them into the pan with the beef.

  3. Toss and stir the mixture for about 2 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve in a covered dish.

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

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

  2. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Beef + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Dried or smoked beef
Main protein that gives the dish its savoury, meaty flavour and chewy texture.
Eggs
Set when heated, binding the beef together into a soft, creamy mixture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the beef and eggs.

The step that matters

Stirring the eggs into the beef. Eggs set quickly in a hot pan. Stirring them gently and stopping while they are still soft keeps the texture tender. Overcooking makes them dry and rubbery.

“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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