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Breakfast Dish of Beef

A dish of thinly sliced roast beef steamed in a sauce of melted butter, gravy, walnut ketchup, and red currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Breakfast Dish of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut thin slices of beef and place them in a saucepan or basin.

Steam

  1. Mix the melted butter, gravy, jelly, and ketchup together, then pour over the beef.

  2. Cover the saucepan tightly and place it in a larger pot half full of boiling water.

  3. Steam for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Transfer the meat to a dish and pour the sauce over it.

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

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

  2. Pepper + red curranttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together267 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Pepper + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Walnut + red curranttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together31 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Roast beef
Is the main protein, cooked gently by steam so it stays tender and moist.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and keeping the meat moist.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the ketchup or vinegar.
Walnut ketchup or vinegar
Adds acidity and savoury depth to the sauce, cutting the richness of the butter.

The step that matters

Sealing the saucepan during steaming. A tight lid keeps steam trapped around the beef so it cooks gently in moist heat. A loose cover lets steam escape, so the meat can dry out and the sauce can reduce unevenly.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, pepper, walnut. 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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