Name: Beef Cakes for a Side Dish of Dressed Meat
Ingredients: underdone beef; fat bacon or ham; pepper; coarse sea salt; shallot or garlic; oil or butter for frying; thick gravy for serving

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 ↓

Beef Cakes for a Side Dish of Dressed Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Pound the underdone beef with a little fat bacon or ham.
Season the mixture with pepper, coarse sea salt, and shallot or garlic.
Mix well and shape into small cakes, three inches long and half as wide and thick.
Fry the cakes in oil or butter until light brown.
Serve the cakes in a good thick gravy.

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.

Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,898 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Beef + shallottop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,103 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Beef + hamtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,729 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,475 recipes

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