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Beef, Minced

A stew of minced beef with vegetables, herbs, and a brown roux sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Remove bones and brown parts from the beef.

  2. Place them in a stewpan with herbs, peppercorns, and vegetables.

  3. Cook slowly for about 2 hours, then strain the mixture.

Make the sauce

  1. Make a brown roux by frying flour and butter together until brown.

  2. Add the hot stock to the roux, stir until it boils, then season to taste and simmer gently for 20 minutes.

  3. Finely chop the beef or cut it into small dice. Add it to the sauce.

  4. Cover and let it sit on the side of the stove for 30 minutes to absorb the flavors.

Serve

  1. Before serving, you can add mushroom ketchup, walnut liquor, or other sauces to taste.

  2. Garnish with fried potatoes, croutons, or poached eggs.

  3. Serve in a border of mashed potatoes 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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 and flavorful in the finished sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as the roux cooks and gives body to the stew.
Butter
Carries flavor and, with the flour, forms the roux that thickens the sauce.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the stock.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and aroma to the stock.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and earthy flavor to the stock.

The step that matters

Browning the roux. Flour and butter must fry until brown but not burn; scorched flour turns bitter and dark, and under-browned roux leaves a raw floury taste and weaker color.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, butter, carrot, turnip, parsley, thyme):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, butter, carrot, turnip, parsley, thyme. 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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