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Minced Beef the Portuguese Way

A dish of finely chopped beef simmered with flour and gravy, served over fried bread with poached egg and glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Minced Beef the Portuguese Way

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Trim all fat, nerves, skins, and brown the outside of the beef.

  2. Chop the beef very finely.

Make the minced beef

  1. In a stewpan, combine the beef with flour and beef gravy.

  2. Season with pepper and salt, and warm over low heat without boiling.

  3. Add a little glaze by shaking it over the mixture.

Assemble and serve

  1. Arrange six pieces of fried bread in the center of a hot dish.

  2. Fix the bread with a little flour and egg white.

  3. Pour the minced beef into the divisions of the bread.

  4. Top each portion with a poached or boiled egg.

  5. Sprinkle the eggs with rough pepper and coarse salt, and add a few drops of glaze.

  6. Glaze the bread combs and 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 + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Sirloin beef
Provides the meat that is chopped and gently warmed to form the filling.
Flour
Thickens the beef and gravy mixture so it holds together in the filling.
Beef gravy
Adds moisture and savoury beef flavour to the minced meat.
Egg
Poached or boiled egg adds richness and a soft, creamy topping for the dish.

The step that matters

Warm the beef over low heat without boiling. Boiling toughens the proteins in minced meat, leaving it dry and chewy, so gentle heat keeps the filling tender and juicy.

“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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