Skip to main content
Main

Beef, Minced

A savory dish of minced beef simmered with gravy, mushroom ketchup, and Worcestershire sauce, topped with poached eggs and served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Ketchup and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Beef, Minced

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mince

  1. Cut the meat into small dice.

  2. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  3. Fry the onion until lightly browned.

  4. Sprinkle in the flour and brown slightly.

  5. Add the gravy and boil for 2-3 minutes.

  6. Add the meat.

  7. Add the mushroom ketchup.

  8. Add the Worcestershire sauce or vinegar.

  9. Season with salt and pepper.

  10. Let the pan stand where the contents will be kept hot without boiling for 10-15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Poach the eggs.

  2. Trim them to a round form.

  3. Cut the toast into small triangular shapes.

  4. Turn the mince onto a serving dish.

  5. Place the eggs on top.

  6. Surround with the pieces of toast.

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. Ketchup + saucetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

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

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Roast beef
Provides the main meat, cut into dice that become tender in the gravy.
Eggs
Poached on top, their set white and runny yolk add richness and moisture to the dish.
Butter
Fat for frying the onion and carries flavour through the base of the sauce.
Flour
Browned with the butter and onion, it thickens the gravy into a smooth sauce.
Gravy
Liquid that cooks the meat and forms the body of the mince sauce.
Onion
Browned until sweet, adding savoury depth to the mince.

The step that matters

Let the pan stand without boiling. Holding the mince just below a boil keeps the meat tender and the sauce smooth. Vigorous boiling toughens meat proteins and can cause the thickened sauce to break or scorch.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, egg, butter, flour, mushroom, ketchup, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, egg, butter, flour, mushroom, ketchup, sauce. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes