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Dried Beef with Cream

A dish of finely shaved dried beef simmered in cream or milk and butter, thickened with flour and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and beef 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 ↓

Dried Beef with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Shave the dried beef very fine.

  2. Soak the beef in cold water until it returns to its original size.

  3. Remove the beef from heat when the water is hot but not boiling.

  4. Drain the water.

Make the cream sauce

  1. Pour the drained water onto the cream (or milk and butter).

  2. Add a pinch of pepper.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Thicken the mixture with flour mixed in a little milk.

Serve

  1. Serve on dipped toast or as preferred.

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 + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  4. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Flour + beeftop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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

Dried beef
Provides the salty, savory meat flavor and a chewy texture in the sauce.
Cream
Adds richness, body and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells when heated, giving the sauce body.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with flour mixed in a little milk. Flour mixed into a small amount of cold milk first spreads out evenly, so it does not clump. Stirring it into hot liquid without this step often leaves lumps, because the outer layer of each flour grain sets before the inside can hydrate.

“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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