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To Mince Beef

A dish of minced beef cooked with onion, water, pepper, salt, gravy, and optional shallot vinegar, served over bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Mince Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mince

  1. Combine minced beef, fat, onion, water, pepper, and salt in a small saucepan.

  2. Boil until the onion is soft.

  3. Add the gravy.

  4. Stir gently, cooking for a few minutes without boiling.

Serve

  1. Prepare a small hot dish with sippets of bread.

  2. Pour the mince mixture over the sippets.

  3. If desired, add shallot vinegar for acidity.

  4. Serve.

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 + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Onion + shallottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Underdone beef
Provides the main body and savoury flavour of the dish.
Fat from the beef
Adds richness and moisture to the minced meat as it cooks.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savoury depth to the mince.

The step that matters

Stir gently, cooking without boiling. Boiling minced meat toughens its proteins and makes it dry and grainy, so the mixture should be kept just below a boil once the gravy is added.

Swap the shallot

The recipe marks shallot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, pepper, vinegar, bread):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, pepper, vinegar, 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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