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Broiled Beef Devilled

A dish of sliced cold cooked beef coated in butter, mustard, pepper, salt, and breadcrumbs, then broiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Broiled Beef Devilled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim beef slices to an even size.

  2. Mix melted butter with mustard, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Spread the mixture on the beef slices.

  4. Dip the slices in rolled and sifted cracker or bread crumbs.

Broil and serve

  1. Place them on a buttered double gridiron.

  2. Broil over the fire until just colored.

  3. Serve with a little gravy underneath.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Mustard + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold cooked beef
Forms the main body of the dish, carrying the flavour and texture.
Melted butter
Adds fat and moisture so the coating stays rich and does not dry out.
Mustard
Supplies the sharp, pungent flavour that defines a devilled preparation.
Cracker or bread crumbs
Form a crisp coating that browns under the heat.

The step that matters

Broil over the fire until just colored. Cooked beef is already done, so heat only needs to brown the crumb coating. Overcooking dries the meat and toughens the crust, so watch closely and stop as soon as the surface colours.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, pepper, bread):

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, pepper, 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.

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