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Beef Cakes

Beef cakes are small patties made from minced beef, suet, spices, and onion, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Beef Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the beef into pieces and beat it in a marble mortar until very fine, removing all skin and fat.

  2. Add the chopped beef suet in a ratio of ¼ pound for each pound of meat.

Season and shape

  1. Season with mace, cloves, nutmeg, pepper, coarse sea salt, thyme, sweet marjoram, parsley, and the minced onion.

  2. Blend the mixture thoroughly and form it into small cakes.

Cook

  1. Fry the cakes over a brisk fire until cooked through.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Marjoram + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Nutmeg + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the main body of the cakes and gives them their meaty texture and savour.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the cakes moist and tender as they cook.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and moisture to the savoury mixture.

The step that matters

Beating the meat until very fine. Fine, evenly broken-down meat binds better with the suet and seasonings, so the cakes hold their shape and cook evenly. Leaving large pieces or skin and sinew makes the cakes tough and crumbly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, clove, nutmeg, pepper, thyme, marjoram, parsley):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, clove, nutmeg, pepper, thyme, marjoram, parsley. 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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