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Minced Beef

A dish of sliced roast beef simmered in gravy and butter, served over toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Minced Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the cold roast beef into thin slices.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine some gravy, butter, flour, pepper, and salt in a stewpan.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add a little ketchup and the minced beef slices.

  4. Heat through without boiling.

Serve

  1. Place slices of toast in a dish.

  2. Cover the toast with the minced beef.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 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

Cold roast beef
Provides the main meat, which is gently reheated in the sauce so it stays tender.
Gravy
Supplies the savoury liquid base that carries the flavour of the beef.
Butter
Adds richness and helps form a smooth, flavourful base with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the beef and toast.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity that brighten the savoury gravy.

The step that matters

Heat through without boiling. Once the beef is in the sauce, boiling can toughen cooked meat and make it dry. Gentle heat warms it through while keeping it tender and moist.

“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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