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Be-deviled Beef

Be-Deviled Beef is a baked beef roll with milk crackers, eggs, nutmeg, and salt pork topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Be-deviled Beef

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Shape and bake

  1. In a large bowl, mix the chopped beef, crushed milk crackers, beaten eggs, grated nutmeg, salt, and pepper until well combined.

  2. Shape the mixture into rolls and place small pieces of salt pork on top.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven for one hour.

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 + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  4. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Milk + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Chopped beef
Forms the main body of the rolls and provides the meaty flavor and structure.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help it set firm as it bakes.
Milk crackers
Absorb moisture and help hold the beef mixture together in shape.
Salt pork
Renders fat over the top during baking, adding moisture and savory flavor.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

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