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Beef

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Beef

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the raw part of roasted beef into thin slices, about 2 inches long and 1 inch wide.

  2. In a pan, combine equal parts water and gravy, and boil with the onion, pepper, and salt.

  3. Add butter rolled in flour to the pan and stir until it browns.

  4. Incorporate the mixture into the sauce and let it boil for 1-2 minutes.

  5. Add the sliced beef and warm it through.

  6. Stir in capers, mushrooms, and walnut-pickle or ketchup.

  7. Serve in a soup dish garnished with pickles.

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. Flour + caperstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,024 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

  5. Onion + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, pepper, butter, flour, capers, mushroom. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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