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Devilled Beef

A dish of thinly sliced beef cooked with butter, flour, water, vinegar, mustard, relish, sugar, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Devilled Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the beef into thin slices.

  2. If using salted beef, scald it; if fresh, fry it until browned.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Stir in the flour until slightly browned.

  3. Add the water and stir until it boils.

  4. Then add the vinegar and all other ingredients except the mustard.

  5. Simmer for thirty minutes.

  6. Stir in the mustard five minutes before serving.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Beef
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender during the long simmer.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a sauce and adds color when browned in the butter.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flour, helping it cook smoothly before the liquid goes in.
Made mustard
Adds sharp pungency; added late so its heat and flavor stay bright.
Yorkshire relish
Contributes savory, tangy depth to the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the sauce and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Stir in the mustard five minutes before serving. Mustard's sharp flavor fades with prolonged heat, so adding it near the end keeps its pungency. Heating it briefly also avoids a dull, muted taste.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, butter, vinegar, sugar, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, butter, vinegar, sugar, 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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