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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, served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Dried Beef, with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Shave the beef very fine.

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

  3. Remove from water when soft and the water is hot (do not boil).

Make the cream sauce

  1. Pour on the cream (or milk and butter) and add pepper.

  2. Bring to a boil and thicken with flour mixed in a little milk.

Serve

  1. Serve over dipped toast or as desired.

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. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 main savory flavor and chewy, meaty texture of the dish.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving the sauce a smooth, silky body.
Flour
Thickens the cream as it heats, so the sauce coats the beef and toast.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil and thicken with flour mixed in a little milk. Flour mixed into cold liquid first, rather than dropped in dry, disperses evenly and avoids lumps. Starch thickens as the sauce heats and needs to be stirred while it does so.

“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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