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Beef, Cold Roast, Minced

A minced beef dish simmered in a butter‑flour gravy, served with mashed potatoes or bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,081 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Beef, Cold Roast, Minced

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mince the beef.

  2. Chop the herbs and shallot.

Make the gravy

  1. Brown the butter with the flour in a frying pan.

  2. Add the stock broth.

  3. Simmer with the seasoning for 2‑3 minutes.

Cook and serve

  1. Put the minced beef into a stewpan.

  2. Pour the gravy over the beef.

  3. Simmer until tender, about 15 minutes.

  4. Serve with mashed potatoes or slices of bread.

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. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Shallot + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together272 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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
Provides the main protein, which firms as it cooks and gives the dish its body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and browning it builds a nutty, savory flavor.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth gravy as it cooks with the butter.
Stock broth
Supplies the liquid that forms the gravy and carries savory flavor into the beef.
Shallot
Adds a mild, sweet aroma and savory depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Brown the butter with the flour. Cooking the flour in the melted butter until lightly golden removes its raw taste and helps prevent lumps when the stock is added, giving a smooth, well-flavored gravy.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Shallotthe original

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