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Dried Beef

A dish of finely chopped dried beef simmered in milk, thickened with flour, seasoned with butter and pepper, served with baked potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Dried Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Chop the dried beef finely and place it in a stewpan covered with cold water.

  2. Bring to a boil, then pour off the water.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the milk to the beef.

  2. Thicken the mixture with flour mixed with a little cold milk or water.

  3. Add a bit of butter and pepper to taste.

Serve

  1. Serve with baked potatoes.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

Dried beef
Provides the salty, savoury meat flavour that the sauce is built around.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the creamy sauce and adds richness and body.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce as its starch gelatinises with heat.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer mouthfeel and a silkier finish to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the mixture with flour. Flour must be mixed with a little cold liquid first so it disperses evenly. Added dry or to hot liquid, it clumps, and the starch then cannot thicken the sauce smoothly.

“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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