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Fricassee of Chipped Beef

A fricassee made with thinly sliced beef, butter, flour, milk, browning, egg yolk, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Fricassee of Chipped Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Shred the beef into fine pieces using a meat chopper or your fingers.

  2. If the beef is salty, cover it with boiling water and let it sit for 15 minutes.

  3. Drain and dry the beef.

Make the fricassee

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the beef, stirring until heated through.

  2. Dust the beef with flour and mix well.

  3. Gradually add the milk while stirring constantly until boiling.

  4. Reduce heat and let it simmer gently for 5 minutes.

  5. Add pepper and browning.

  6. Remove from heat and stir in the egg yolk.

Serve

  1. Transfer to a heated serving dish.

  2. Garnish with slices of broiled or baked mush and serve with plain, well-boiled mush.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Beef
Forms the main body of the dish and provides its savory meaty flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor as it melts into the pan.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the liquid of the sauce, giving it a creamy, soft texture.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the sauce when stirred in off the heat.

The step that matters

Adding the milk gradually. Pouring the milk in slowly while stirring constantly keeps the flour evenly dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps.

“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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