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Beef Mironton

A dish of sliced boiled beef simmered in a mustard and broth sauce with onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Mironton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold boiled beef into ¼ inch thick slices, trimming off fat and dry parts.

  2. Peel and finely shred the onions, then fry them in butter until light brown.

Make the sauce

  1. Sprinkle flour over the onions, season with salt and pepper, and let simmer for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the broth and stir well, cooking for 15 minutes.

  3. Stir in the mustard, then add the beef slices, warming them without boiling for a few minutes.

  4. Adjust seasoning if needed, then serve.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled beef
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the meat that is warmed through in the sauce.
Onions
Soften and brown in butter, adding sweetness and depth to the sauce.
Butter
Carries the frying of the onions and adds richness and flavor.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smooth sauce as it cooks with the onions.
Broth
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, carrying the flavor of the dish.
Mixed mustard
Adds a sharp, tangy bite that cuts through the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Warming the beef without boiling. Boiling the sliced beef in the sauce toughens the meat fibres and can make it dry and stringy. Keeping the sauce just below a boil warms the slices gently and keeps them tender.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, onion, flour, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, onion, flour, pepper. 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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