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Dried Beef, with Cream

A dish of finely shaved dried beef simmered in cream or milk and butter, thickened with flour, served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Dried Beef, with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Shave the beef very fine.

  2. Soak the beef in cold water until it returns to its original size.

  3. Remove from heat when the water is hot but not boiling.

Make the cream sauce

  1. Drain the water and pour on the cream (or milk and butter) and add a pinch of pepper.

  2. Bring to a boil and thicken with flour mixed in a little milk.

Serve

  1. Serve on dipped toast or as preferred.

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. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Provides the main savory meat flavor and chewy body once rehydrated in water.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, velvety texture.
Flour
Starch thickens the liquid as it heats, turning the cream into a sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening with flour mixed in milk. Flour must be whisked smoothly into cold milk before it goes into the hot cream, because dry starch clumps on contact with hot liquid. Once the mixture boils, the starch swells and thickens the sauce.

“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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