Name: Chip Beef with Tomatoes
Ingredients: 2 solid ripe tomatoes; 1 tablespoon melted butter; ¼ pound chip beef, cut very thin; sifted flour; white pepper; ½ teaspoon minced parsley (optional)

Why it works: Tomato and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,448 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chip Beef with Tomatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Pare the tomatoes with a sharp knife.
Cut the tomatoes into 1-inch pieces.
Dust the tomato pieces with sifted flour.

Cook

Heat a saucepan and add melted butter.
Stir the tomatoes into the hot butter.
Cook for 5 minutes.
Add white pepper and chip beef. Stir with a fork.
Cover the saucepan and simmer for 10 minutes.
Add minced parsley if 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.

Tomato + beeftop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,448 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,398 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together16,675 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
White pepper + parsleytop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,451 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

Butter and flour 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

Tomatoes: Provide the main body and juice that form the sauce.
Chip beef: Supplies the savory, salty meat flavor and chewy texture.
Butter: Carries heat and adds richness to the tomatoes.
Flour: Dusted on the tomatoes to help thicken the juices as they cook.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, butter, beef, flour, white pepper):

Tarragonfits about as well
Thymefits about as well
Parsleythe original
Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, beef, flour, white 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.