Skip to main content
Main

Creamed Dried Beef

A creamy sauce served over chopped dried beef.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Creamed Dried Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Pull the chipped beef into small pieces.

  2. Melt the butter in a frying pan.

  3. Add the beef and stir until the edges begin to curl.

  4. Remove the beef from the pan.

Make the gravy

  1. Mix the flour with the remaining butter in the pan.

  2. Slowly add the water or milk while stirring.

  3. Return to the stove and stir until it thickens.

Serve

  1. Serve in a dish or on toast.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Chipped beef
Provides the salty, savory meat flavor and the main substance of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor while cooking the beef and starting the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, creamy sauce when cooked with fat and milk.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it heats.

The step that matters

Adding the liquid slowly. Pouring the water or milk in gradually while stirring keeps the flour and fat blended, so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps.

“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.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes