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Iced Minced Beef

A baked minced beef dish with gravy, breadcrumbs, and clarified butter.

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 ↓

Iced Minced Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Mince the cold roast beef finely, including some fat.

  2. Season the minced beef with cayenne, mace or nutmeg, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Add minced eschalots, chopped mushrooms, and mushroom ketchup, then mix well.

  4. Combine the mixture with 1 cup of gravy and place it in a deep dish.

Top and bake

  1. Top with a layer of bread crumbs and moisten with clarified butter.

  2. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 20 minutes or brown in a Dutch oven.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 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

Cold roast beef
Provides the main body of the dish, and its fat adds richness and moisture to the mince.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury depth and umami to the filling.
1 cup good gravy
Moistens the minced beef so the filling stays tender and cohesive.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp topping that browns in the oven.
Clarified butter
Adds fat that helps the crumb topping brown and crisp.

The step that matters

Bake in a 300°F oven or brown in a Dutch oven. The crumb topping needs enough fat and dry heat to brown and crisp. Too little heat leaves it pale and soft, while the filling can dry out if overbaked.

Swap the mace

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

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

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