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Dried Beef with Eggs

A dish of thinly shaved dried beef cooked with butter, cream or milk, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Dried Beef with Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish.

  2. Add the cream or milk and dried beef; let it simmer for about 10 minutes.

  3. Stir in the eggs rapidly and serve as soon as the eggs are set.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Cream + beeftop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,128 recipes

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

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Coagulate as they heat, setting the mixture into soft, tender curds.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the eggs soft and tender as they set.
Butter
Fat that carries flavor and adds richness to the dish.
Dried beef
Supplies the savory, meaty flavor that defines the dish.

The step that matters

Stir in the eggs rapidly and serve as soon as they are set. Egg proteins set with heat and keep cooking after they leave the heat, so eggs left in the pan turn firm, dry and 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.

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