Skip to main content
Main

Beef Saunders

A casserole of mashed potatoes, sliced rare beef, and rich gravy baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Beef Saunders

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Wash the potatoes.

  2. Place the potatoes in a saucepan.

  3. Cover the potatoes with water and add a handful of coarse sea salt.

  4. Heat until just boiling, but do not let them boil until done.

  5. Peel the potatoes.

  6. Mash the potatoes with milk and butter.

  7. Season the mashed potatoes with cayenne pepper and salt.

Assemble and bake

  1. Spread a layer of mashed potatoes on the bottom of a dish.

  2. Lay slices of rare beef closely together on top of the potatoes.

  3. Pour the rich gravy over the beef.

  4. Cover with another layer of mashed potatoes.

  5. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 45 minutes.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Potato + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the casserole and, once mashed, the soft layers around the beef.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that makes the mashed potatoes smooth and tender.
Milk
Adds moisture so the mashed potatoes spread easily and stay creamy.
Rare beef
Provides the savoury meat layer at the centre of the casserole.
Rich gravy
Moistens the beef and adds savoury flavour that seeps into the potatoes.

The step that matters

Heat the potatoes until just boiling. Boiling them until fully cooked before peeling and mashing can leave them waterlogged and gluey, while the baking step already finishes the casserole. Heating only to just boiling keeps the potatoes firm enough to mash smoothly without absorbing excess water.

“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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes