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Beef Cake

A baked casserole of rolled beef, vegetables, and gelatin set in a browned broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Beef Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the beefsteak into small, nearly square slices.

  2. Season the slices with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. Roll the seasoned slices tightly.

Bake

  1. Slice the carrot, onion, and turnip.

  2. Place the sliced vegetables in a jar with the bacon.

  3. Place the rolled meat on top of the vegetables.

  4. Mix the browning with the hot water and season the mixture with salt and pepper.

  5. Pour the mixture into the jar.

  6. Cover the jar.

  7. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 2 hours.

  8. Remove the meat and vegetables from the jar.

Set and serve

  1. Cut some carrot into fancy shapes.

  2. Place the shaped carrot in a pie dish with slices of hard-boiled egg.

  3. Sprinkle with chopped parsley.

  4. Add the meat to the dish.

  5. Boil the cooking liquid.

  6. Skim off grease from the liquid.

  7. Add softened leaf gelatin to the liquid.

  8. Stir the gelatin mixture for a few minutes.

  9. Strain the gelatin mixture over the meat.

  10. Once firm, turn out the beef cake.

  11. Garnish with parsley.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beefsteak
Forms the main body of the cake and becomes tender during slow baking.
Leaf gelatine
Sets the strained cooking liquid into a firm jelly around the meat.
Bacon
Adds savoury fat that flavours the meat and cooking liquid.
Browning
Adds a brown colour and savoury flavour to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Skim off grease from the liquid. Fat left in the cooking liquid can cloud the jelly and keep it from setting clear and firm, so it should be removed before the gelatine is added.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, nutmeg, carrot, turnip, parsley, egg):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, nutmeg, carrot, turnip, parsley, egg. 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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