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Smoked, Beef and Eggs

A fried dish of eggs cooked with smoked beef and butter, finished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 28,563 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Smoked, Beef and Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Place the smoked beef in a frying pan, cover with boiling water, and scald for 5 minutes.

  2. Drain the water and add the butter to the pan.

Cook the eggs

  1. Crack the eggs into a bowl and beat until well mixed.

  2. Pour the beaten eggs over the beef in the pan and cook until the eggs are set.

  3. Garnish with chopped parsley 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. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Beef + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,866 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Parsley + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 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

Eggs
Set into a soft structure that binds the beef together as they cook.
Smoked beef
Provides savoury, smoky flavour and salty depth to the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and helps keep the eggs and beef from sticking to the pan.

The step that matters

Cooking the eggs until just set. Eggs turn firm and rubbery when overcooked because the proteins tighten too far. Removing them from heat while still slightly moist keeps them tender.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, egg, butter. 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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