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Beef Timbales

A dish of seasoned minced beef formed into small molds, steamed or oven-poached, served with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beef Timbales

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the mixture

  1. Mix minced meat with salt, pepper, celery salt, grated onion, and chopped parsley.

  2. Add beaten egg and mix well.

  3. Combine bread crumbs with strained tomatoes and let stand 5 minutes. Add this mixture to the meat and mix thoroughly.

Mould and cook

  1. Fill small greased molds with the meat mixture and cover with greased paper.

  2. Steam for 30 minutes or oven-poach for 20 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

Serve

  1. Unmold the timbales. Garnish with parsley.

  2. Serve with tomato sauce.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Minced cooked meat
Provides the main body and savoury flavour of the timbales.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the timbales hold their shape when unmoulded.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body, keeping the timbales moist and tender.
Strained tomatoes or gravy
Moistens the crumbs and adds liquid that keeps the mixture from drying out.
Grated onion
Adds aromatic flavour that carries through the meat mixture.

The step that matters

Cover the molds with greased paper before cooking. The greased paper traps moisture and keeps the surface from drying or browning too hard while the egg sets the mixture during steaming or oven-poaching.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper, celery, parsley, bread, egg, tomato):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, celery, parsley, bread, egg, tomato. 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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