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Dried Beef with Cream

A dish of finely shaved dried beef simmered in cream or milk and butter, thickened with flour and seasoned with pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Dried Beef with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Soak the shaved beef in cold water until it returns to its original size.

  2. Remove the beef from heat when the water is hot but not boiling.

  3. Drain the water from the beef.

Make the cream sauce

  1. Pour 1 cup of cream (or milk and butter) over the beef.

  2. Add a pinch of pepper to the mixture.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Mix 1 tablespoon of flour with a little milk.

  5. Thicken the mixture by adding the flour mixture.

Serve

  1. Serve over dipped toast or as desired.

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

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

  2. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Beef
Provides the savory, meaty flavor and chewy texture of the dish.
Cream
Adds richness, fat and body to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells when heated.

The step that matters

Adding the flour mixture to the hot liquid. Flour mixed with a little milk first forms a smooth slurry that disperses evenly. Its starch only thickens the sauce once heated, so adding it dry or without stirring can leave lumps and an uneven texture.

“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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