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Dried Beef

Pan‑fry thin slices of dried or smoked beef with butter, pepper, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Slice the dried or smoked beef into thin pieces.

  2. Place the beef in a frying pan.

  3. Cover the pan with boiling water.

  4. Cook over heat for 10 minutes.

  5. Drain the water.

  6. Cut the beef into small bits with a knife and fork.

Cook and serve

  1. Return the beef to the hot pan with butter and a little pepper.

  2. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  3. Stir the beaten eggs into the pan with the beef.

  4. Toss and stir the mixture for about 2 minutes.

  5. Serve in a covered dish.

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 + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Beef + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried or smoked beef
Provides the main savoury, salty meat flavour and the substance of the dish.
Eggs
Set when stirred into the hot beef, binding the pieces together and adding richness.
Butter
Adds fat for flavour and helps the beef and eggs cook without sticking.

The step that matters

Stir the beaten eggs into the pan with the beef. Eggs set quickly from heat, so stirring them in while the pan is hot and then tossing only briefly keeps them soft and tender. Overcooking makes them dry and rubbery.

“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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