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Beef Gateau

A baked beef loaf made with dripping, bacon, onion, flour, water, relish, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beef Gateau

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the dripping with bacon and sliced onion in a frying pan until browned; set aside to cool.

  2. Add flour to the pan and stir into the fat; gradually pour in hot water while stirring until the sauce is smooth and thick.

  3. Add the relish and browning, season with pepper and nutmeg, and let it simmer for 10 minutes.

Assemble the loaf

  1. Pass the beef through a meat grinder, strain the sauce into the minced meat, mix well, and add the beaten egg.

  2. Grease a plain tin mold with clarified dripping, fill it with the cold mince mixture, cover with greased paper, and place a plate on top.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a hot oven (400°F/200°C) for 30 minutes, or longer if the oven is only moderately hot.

  2. Turn the meat out of the mold and pour some brown sauce or clear gravy around the 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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Beefsteak
Forms the body of the loaf, giving it its meaty texture once minced and set.
Egg
Binds the minced meat together so the loaf holds its shape when turned out.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth sauce that keeps the mince moist.
Dripping
Fat for browning the onion and bacon, adding richness and flavour.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it browns in the fat.

The step that matters

Cooling the sauce before mixing. The sauce should be cooled and the mince cold before they are combined and baked. Adding warm sauce to the beaten egg can start to cook it unevenly, and the egg needs to set in the oven to bind the loaf.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, tomato, pepper, nutmeg, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, tomato, pepper, nutmeg, egg. 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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