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Beef Timbole

A baked beef dish with bacon, onion, and minced steak in a thickened sauce, served with gherkin sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Beef Timbole

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.

Brown the meat

  1. Heat the clarified beef dripping in a stewpan.

  2. Add the bacon, onion, and beefsteak to the pan and fry until browned.

  3. Remove the meat and let it cool.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix flour with the fat in the pan, then gradually stir in hot water until smooth and thick.

  2. Add browning, tomato ketchup, salt, and pepper, and simmer for 10 minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Pass the steak through a mincing machine and strain the sauce into the minced meat.

  2. Add the beaten egg and mix well.

  3. Grease dariole moulds with dripping and fill them with the mixture.

  4. Cover with greased paper and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 30 minutes.

  5. Once firm, turn out of the moulds and pour gherkin sauce around the dish.

  6. Simmer the minced gherkins in the sauce for 10 minutes 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. Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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

Beefsteak
Provides the main meaty body and savoury flavour of the timbol.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices into a smooth sauce that binds the minced meat.
Egg
Sets when baked, holding the mixture together so it turns out firm.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it browns in the fat.
Tomato ketchup
Adds acidity and sweetness to the sauce, rounding out its flavour.
Beef dripping
Carries flavour during frying and adds richness to the sauce and greasing.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour into the fat and adding hot water gradually. Stirring hot liquid slowly into the flour and fat lets the starch swell evenly, so the sauce becomes smooth instead of lumpy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, tomato, ketchup, pepper, egg, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, tomato, ketchup, pepper, egg, sauce. 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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