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Ragout of Cold Beef

A ragout made with thinly sliced rare cold beef, butter, mace, cayenne pepper, salt, mushroom ketchup, browned flour, beef broth, Port wine, and browning sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Ragout of Cold Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the rare cold beef thinly.

  2. Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat.

Make the ragout

  1. Add the beef slices and brown lightly.

  2. Stir in the mace, cayenne pepper, salt, mushroom ketchup, and browned flour.

  3. Pour in the beef broth.

  4. Simmer for five minutes.

  5. Add the Port wine and browning sauce.

  6. Bring to a boil.

  7. 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. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + port winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rare cold beef
Provides the meat that is browned and simmered into the ragout.
Browned flour
Thickens the broth into a sauce as it simmers.
Beef broth
Forms the liquid base that the sauce simmers in.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for browning the beef and carrying flavor.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savory umami flavor to the sauce.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, pepper, mushroom, ketchup, flour, port wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, pepper, mushroom, ketchup, flour, port wine. 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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