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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 softens and returns to its original size.

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

  4. Drain the water.

Make the cream sauce

  1. Pour the cream (or milk and butter) and a pinch of pepper over the beef.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Thicken the sauce with flour mixed in a little milk.

Serve

  1. Serve on dipped toast if desired.

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
Main ingredient; soaking softens its dried texture so it becomes tender in the sauce.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, creamy body.
Flour
Starch thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the sauce body.

The step that matters

Mix the flour into a little milk before adding it to the sauce. Flour starch clumps when dropped into hot liquid dry. Mixing it into cold milk first lets the granules disperse evenly, so the sauce thickens smoothly as it heats.

“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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