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Fricassee of Dried Beef

A skillet dish of dried beef cooked with butter, eggs, and cream, served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fricassee of Dried Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beef

  1. Melt the butter in a skillet.

  2. Add the beef when the butter begins to brown.

Make the sauce

  1. Beat the eggs and mix them with the cream, then add to the skillet.

  2. Cook until the sauce thickens.

Serve

  1. Serve over toast.

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

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

  2. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Beef + creamtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,128 recipes

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

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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 savory, salty flavor and chewy texture that define the dish.
Eggs
Their proteins set as they heat, thickening the sauce and giving it body.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, producing a smooth, creamy sauce.
Butter
Provides fat for cooking the beef and a nutty flavor from browning.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce gently until it thickens. Egg proteins set as they heat and thicken the cream. If the heat is too high or the cooking runs too long, the eggs overcook and turn grainy or curdled instead of smooth.

“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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