Name: Fricassee of Beef
Ingredients: slices of cold roast beef; water; 1 teaspoon dry mustard; 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce; 1 walnut-sized lump of butter; 5 tablespoons tomato ketchup; 3 crackers, finely crushed; cayenne pepper to taste; salt to taste

Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Fricassee of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Cover the slices of cold roast beef with water and boil until tender.
Just before serving, add the dry mustard, Worcestershire sauce, butter, tomato ketchup, crushed crackers, cayenne pepper, and salt.
Cook for 5 minutes and serve.

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.

Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,099 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,448 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + walnuttop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together849 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold roast beef: Provides the meat that becomes tender when simmered in water.
Tomato ketchup: Adds sweetness and acidity to the sauce, giving it a tangy flavour.
Crackers: Crushed crackers thicken the sauce slightly and add body.
Worcestershire sauce: Adds savoury depth and acidity to the sauce.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, mustard, sauce, butter, tomato, ketchup, pepper):

Beansfits better
Sesamefits about as well
Black-eyed peafits about as well
Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, mustard, sauce, butter, tomato, ketchup, 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.