Skip to main content
Main

Beef Timbales

Beef timbales are baked meat custards served with tomato sauce.

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

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Beef Timbales

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Remove fat and gristle from the meat and chop finely.

  2. In a saucepan, combine stock or water, bread crumbs, and butter over low heat until hot. Add the chopped meat, then remove from heat and stir in the beaten eggs carefully.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into buttered custard or timbale cups.

  2. Place the cups in a baking pan filled halfway with hot water.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.

  4. Serve with tomato sauce.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the meat mixture and set it into a firm, sliceable custard as they cook.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the stock and butter, adding body so the mixture holds together.
Left-over meat
Forms the main body of the timbale and gives it its savoury beef flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth texture to the mixture.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten eggs carefully. Eggs set when heated, so adding them off the heat and stirring gently keeps the mixture from curdling or scrambling before baking. Gentle baking in a water bath then cooks the custard evenly and keeps it smooth rather than rubbery.

“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

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipes