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Deied Beep with White Sauce

A dish of dried beef simmered in a white sauce of butter, flour, red pepper, parsley, and cream or milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Deied Beep with White Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the white sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour, red pepper, and parsley, cooking for 1-2 minutes.

  3. Gradually add the cream or milk, stirring constantly until the sauce thickens.

Finish

  1. Add the dried beef, stirring to combine and heat 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Dried beef
Supplies the main meat flavour and salty, savoury taste of the dish.
Butter
Carries flavour and adds richness as the base fat of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Cream or milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and adds richness and body.

The step that matters

Adding the cream or milk gradually. Pouring the liquid in slowly while stirring constantly lets the flour disperse evenly, which prevents lumps and gives a smooth sauce as it thickens.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Turmericfits about as well

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