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Beef Steak, the Mandarins’

Beef steak served with mandarin sauce, accompanied by meatballs and potato balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Steak, the Mandarins’

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the beef into an oval shape.

  2. Pass the trimmings through a mincing machine.

Make the meatballs

  1. Mix the minced meat with fried onion, chopped ham, brown sauce, beaten egg, and enough bread crumbs to bind.

  2. Form the mixture into small balls, no larger than a cherry, and coat them in egg and bread crumbs.

  3. Cook the balls in a sauté pan until golden.

Grill and serve

  1. Grill the steak for 30 minutes, turning every 2-3 minutes.

  2. Serve the steak on a hot dish, surrounded by the meatballs and Potato Balls or Cutlets.

  3. Pour 1½ cups of Mandarins' Sauce over the steak and serve hot.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  4. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef steak
Forms the main body of the dish and provides the meaty texture.
Minced beef trimmings
Bind together with egg and crumbs to form the cohesive meatballs.
Beaten egg
Binds the mixture and forms a golden coating on the meatballs.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the mixture, and brown when fried.
Ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the meatball mixture.
Fried onion
Adds sweetness and aroma to the meatball mixture.

The step that matters

Grill the steak for 30 minutes, turning every 2-3 minutes. Frequent turning keeps the surface from scorching while heat penetrates the thick cut. Cooking too fast on one side can char the outside before the centre cooks through.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, ham, sauce, egg, bread, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, ham, sauce, egg, bread, pepper. 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.

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