Name: Minced Canned Beef on Toast
Ingredients: 2 cups canned roast beef; 1 cup cream sauce; 1 tablespoon chopped green peppers or celery; 2 tablespoons tomato ketchup; 2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley or celery top; Salt and pepper to taste; Bread for toasting

Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Minced Canned Beef on Toast

Ingredients

2 cups canned roast beef
1 cup cream sauce
1 tablespoon chopped green peppers or celery
2 tablespoons tomato ketchup
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley or celery top
Salt and pepper to taste
Bread for toasting

Directions

Make the beef topping

Chop the canned roast beef quite fine.
Add the chopped beef to the cream sauce.
Bring the mixture to a boil.
Stir in the green peppers or celery and tomato ketchup.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Assemble and serve

Toast the bread.
Cover a platter with the toasted bread.
Top the toasted bread with the minced beef mixture.
Sprinkle with parsley or celery top.
Garnish with sprigs of parsley.

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.

Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,099 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,448 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Canned roast beef: Provides the main protein and meaty bulk of the topping once chopped fine.
Cream sauce: Supplies moisture and a rich, smooth base that binds the chopped beef together.
Tomato ketchup: Adds sweetness and acidity that brighten the savory cream sauce.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, cream, sauce, pepper, tomato, ketchup, bread):

Celeryfits better
Tarragonfits about as well
Garlicfits about as well
Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, cream, sauce, pepper, tomato, ketchup, bread. 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.