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A Nice Dish From Cold Beef, with Mashed Potatoes

A casserole of sliced cold beef topped with mashed potatoes and baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

A Nice Dish From Cold Beef, with Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Mash the potatoes with hot milk and the yolk of an egg.

  2. Add butter and salt to the mashed potatoes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the sliced cold beef in a pie dish, seasoning with pepper, salt, and beef gravy.

  2. Spread the mashed potatoes over the beef, scoring the top in squares with a knife.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until browned on all sides.

  4. Serve immediately.

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

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

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Form the topping that browns in the oven and gives the casserole its structure.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the mashed potatoes, softening their texture.
Cold beef
Forms the meat layer, providing the savory base of the dish.
Beef gravy
Adds moisture and savory flavor to the beef layer so it does not dry out.

The step that matters

Bake until browned on all sides. The oven must brown the potato topping while heating the beef through. Browning comes from surface dryness and heat, so the dish can look done before the centre is hot. Check the middle as well as the top.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Tomatofits less well

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