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Beef, Roast, Minced

A pan‑sautéed minced roast beef simmered in gravy, wine, herbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Beef, Roast, Minced

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce and beef

  1. In a pan, heat the butter and brown the flour.

  2. Add the minced beef, gravy or stock, and wine.

  3. Season with chopped herbs, salt, and pepper.

Finish and serve

  1. When nearly ready, stir in a little more butter.

  2. Serve with eggs arranged around the dish or with crisp fried 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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

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

  4. Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

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

  5. Wine + peppertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,066 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Browned in butter to thicken the sauce and give it a nutty flavor.
Butter
Carries the browning of the flour and adds richness when stirred in at the end.
Roast beef
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked gently in the sauce until tender.
Wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavor to the sauce as it simmers.

The step that matters

Browning the flour in butter. Flour that is browned too little tastes raw and pasty, while too much turns bitter. Cooking it in fat until golden before adding liquid lets it thicken the sauce smoothly and develop a nutty flavor.

“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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