Skip to main content
Main

Tomatoes with Chipped Beef

A quick skillet dish of tomatoes simmered with thinly sliced beef, butter, flour, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Tomatoes with Chipped Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare the tomatoes with a sharp knife.

Cook

  1. Melt the butter over medium heat in a saucepan.

  2. Cut the tomatoes into small pieces, dust them with flour, and stir into the butter.

  3. Cook for five minutes.

  4. Add a sprinkle of pepper and the chopped beef.

  5. Stir with a fork, cover, and let simmer for ten minutes.

  6. If preferred, add minced parsley before serving.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomatoes
Provide the main body and moisture of the skillet mixture as they break down.
Flour
Dusted on the tomatoes to lightly thicken the juices in the butter.
Chopped beef
Supplies the meat and savory flavor, cooking through as it simmers.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the base in which the tomatoes cook.

The step that matters

Stir with a fork, cover, and let simmer for ten minutes.. Covering and simmering gently keeps the beef tender and moist. Too much heat or an open pan can dry out thinly cut meat and reduce the sauce unevenly.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, butter, flour, pepper, beef):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Oreganofits about as well

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

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes