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Mince Beef with Onions

A dish of finely shredded beef cooked with onions, seasoned with salt, and finished with consomme, sauce, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mince Beef with Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the beef into long strips and shred it very fine with a sharp knife.

  2. Heat clarified butter over high heat in a stewpan.

  3. Add the beef and season with salt.

  4. Stir until cooked through.

  5. Add the consomme and sauce.

  6. Let it boil gently until thickened.

Prepare the onions

  1. Shred the onions very fine.

  2. Fry them in clarified butter until brown.

  3. Drain on a sieve.

  4. Combine the fried onions with the same amount of consomme and sauce as the beef in a small stewpan.

  5. Boil gently until thickened.

Serve

  1. Place the beef in a serving dish.

  2. Mix the onions with a little lemon juice.

  3. Layer them over the beef.

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

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

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Rump of beef
Forms the main body of the dish, and shredding it finely gives it a tender, delicate texture.
Clarified butter
Cooks the beef and browns the onions, adding richness and a nutty flavour.
Consomme
Adds liquid and savoury depth, and helps the mixture thicken when boiled.
Sauce tournee or plain sauce
Thickens the mixture and gives it a smooth, body-rich texture.
Onions
Add sweetness and depth of flavour when fried until brown.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, buttery onions.

The step that matters

Boiling the beef in consomme and sauce until thickened. Boiling gently rather than hard lets the sauce reduce and thicken evenly without toughening or scorching the finely shredded beef, which is easy to overcook.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, sauce, onion):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, sauce, onion. 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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