Skip to main content
Main

Meat in Cups

A baked dish of chopped roast beef, eggs, and breadcrumbs, served in cups with tomato sauce.

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

Meat in Cups

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Combine chopped roast beef and stock in a pot and heat until boiling.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in beaten eggs, salt, and pepper.

Bake and serve

  1. Grease cups with oil or butter and fill them with the mixture.

  2. Place the cups in a pan half-filled with boiling water.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 20 minutes.

  4. Cover with tomato sauce and serve.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set into a firm, sliceable texture when baked.
Roast beef
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the cups.
Stock
Adds moisture and savory flavor to the chopped beef.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help give the cups a tender, cohesive structure.

The step that matters

Placing the cups in boiling water. A water bath surrounds the cups with gentle, even heat, so the egg custard sets smoothly without curdling or drying at the edges.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, egg, pepper, butter, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, egg, pepper, butter, 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes