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Beef, Minced

A stew of minced beef simmered in a brown roux-based sauce with vegetables and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Beef, Minced

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Remove bones and brown parts from the beef.

  2. Place bones, herbs, peppercorns, and vegetables in a stewpan with water and cook slowly for about 2 hours.

  3. Strain the stock and prepare a brown roux by frying flour and butter until brown.

Make the stew

  1. Add hot stock to the roux, stir until boiling, then season to taste and simmer for 20 minutes.

  2. Finely chop the beef and add it to the sauce, cover, and let it sit on the side of the stove for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Before serving, you may add mushroom ketchup, walnut liquor, or other sauces to taste.

  2. Garnish with fried potatoes, croutons, or poached eggs, or serve in a border of mashed potatoes.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold roast beef
Provides the meat that is finely chopped and gently warmed in the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the stock when cooked with butter as a roux.
Butter
Fat that cooks with the flour to form the browned roux, adding flavour and body.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the stock as it simmers.

The step that matters

Browning the roux. Flour and butter must be fried until evenly brown, not pale or burnt. Browning develops nutty flavour and colour, while the starch thickens the stock once hot liquid is added.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, butter, carrot, turnip, parsley, thyme):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, butter, carrot, turnip, parsley, thyme. 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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