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Beef Cakes

Beef cakes are patties made from minced roast beef, ham, herbs, and egg, coated in breadcrumbs and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Beef Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mince the beef and ham.

Form the cakes

  1. Add sweet herbs, pepper, salt, and mix with the beaten egg.

  2. Form the mixture into cakes.

  3. Brush each cake with egg white and coat with bread crumbs.

Fry

  1. Fry in hot oil for 5 minutes until golden brown.

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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Beef + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,729 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

Roast beef
Forms the main body of the cakes and gives them their meaty flavor.
Egg
Binds the minced meat so the mixture holds its shape when formed into cakes.
Ham or bacon
Adds salty, savory fat that flavors the mixture and keeps it moist.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer coating that browns when the cakes are fried.

The step that matters

Frying the coated cakes. Oil must be hot enough to brown the crumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the cakes absorb excess oil and turn greasy, while the crust fails to set and may fall apart.

“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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