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Beef, Minced, Savoury

A savory minced beef gravy with shallots, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, walnut, stock, flour, store sauce, mustard, and beef dripping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Beef, Minced, Savoury

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fry the shallots in a little beef dripping until soft.

  2. Cut the beef into small dice.

Make the gravy

  1. Stir in the stock with the browned flour and store sauce.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add the chopped walnuts, a little of their vinegar, salt, pepper, and mustard.

  4. Add the diced beef to the gravy.

  5. Cook for 20 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with a border of potatoes or vegetables, or with toast or croutons.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the meat that gives the gravy its substance and savoury flavour once diced and simmered.
Browned flour
Thickens the stock into a gravy and adds a toasted, nutty depth of flavour.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the gravy and carries the flavour of the other ingredients.
Pickled walnut
Adds a sharp, tangy acidity that cuts through the richness of the beef and gravy.
Shallots
Soften during frying to add a mild, sweet onion-like aroma to the base.
Store sauce
Contributes savoury, tangy depth and colour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Bring the mixture to a boil. Browned flour only thickens properly once the stock is hot enough for its starch to swell. Stirring while the liquid heats keeps lumps from forming, so the gravy turns smooth and glossy rather than floury.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, shallot, parsley, thyme, flour, sauce, pepper):

  1. Black-eyed peafits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, shallot, parsley, thyme, flour, sauce, 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.

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