Skip to main content
Main

Podovies, or Beef Patties

Beef patties made with shredded beef, flour, butter, egg, and milk, fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Shallot and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,081 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Podovies, or Beef Patties

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine shredded beef, fat, pepper, salt, and shallot or onion.

Make the dough

  1. In another bowl, mix flour, butter, egg, and milk to form a plain paste.

  2. Roll the paste thin and cut into circles like apple puffs.

Fill and fry

  1. Place a spoonful of the beef mixture in the center of each circle.

  2. Pinch the edges to seal and fry in hot oil until golden brown.

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. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Underdone beef
Provides the savory, meaty filling that flavors the whole patty.
All-purpose flour
Forms the paste and structure that holds the filling inside the dough.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the dough.
Egg
Binds the dough and helps it set and hold its shape.
Milk
Adds moisture to the dough and helps it brown when fried.

The step that matters

Pinch the edges to seal. If the edges are not sealed firmly, the filling can leak into the hot oil and the patties may open or burst while frying. A tight seal keeps the juices inside and lets the dough cook evenly.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Shallotthe original

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

More beef patties recipes

Scraped 4 See all 32 →

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes