Skip to main content
Main

Beef, Hunteifs

A beef dish simmered in a tomato and port wine gravy with onions and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Beef, Hunteifs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Combine all ingredients except the beef in a stewpan with any leftover gravy from the roasted meat.

  2. Simmer gently for 10 minutes, then remove from heat and let the gravy cool.

  3. Skim off the fat from the gravy.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut the beef into thin slices, dredge with flour, and add to the gravy.

  2. Simmer gently for 5 minutes without boiling to keep the meat tender.

  3. Serve hot, garnished with toasted bread.

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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tomato sauce
Forms the base of the gravy and gives it its tomato flavour and body.
Port wine or strong ale
Adds depth and acidity to the gravy, rounding out the sweetness of the tomato.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it clings to the beef slices.
Cold roast beef
Provides the meat that is gently warmed and tenderised in the gravy.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and sweetness as it cooks into the gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer the beef gently without boiling. Boiling toughens the proteins in meat and makes thin slices dry and chewy. A gentle simmer keeps the beef tender while it warms through in the gravy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sauce, mushroom, ketchup, port wine, pepper, flour. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes