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Dkied Beef

Thinly sliced dried beef is soaked, boiled, then simmered with butter, pepper, sweet milk, and flour to make a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Dkied Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Thinly slice the dried beef.

  2. Soak the beef in cold water for one hour, then drain.

  3. Pour boiling water over the beef and let it stand for ten minutes, then drain again.

Make the gravy

  1. Place the beef in a suitable pot over the heat.

  2. Add a little butter, pepper, sweet milk, and a small amount of flour.

  3. Simmer for a few minutes, stirring gently.

Serve

  1. Transfer to a deep dish or pan and serve with some of the milk gravy.

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Provides the main salty, savoury meat flavour and chewy texture of the dish.
Flour
Thickens the milk so the gravy becomes smooth and coats the beef.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base of the gravy, adding creaminess and mild sweetness.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer gently while stirring. Flour thickens milk only as its starch swells with heat, and stirring keeps it dispersed so lumps do not form. Too much heat or too little stirring can scorch the milk on the pot base or leave a grainy gravy.

“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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