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Beef Patties

Beef patties are formed from a beef mixture and a plain paste, shaped into apple-puff shapes, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Patties

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine ground beef, salt, pepper, and onion.

Make the pastry

  1. In another bowl, mix flour, butter, egg, and milk to make a plain paste.

  2. Roll the paste thin and cut into apple-puff shapes.

Fill and fry

  1. Fill each shape with the beef mixture and pinch the edges to seal.

  2. Fry the patties in hot oil until they are a nice brown.

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 + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Underdone dressed beef
Provides the savory meat filling that forms the core of each patty.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the pastry dough.
Egg
Binds the pastry ingredients together into a cohesive paste.
Milk
Adds moisture to the pastry so it rolls out smoothly.
Flour
Forms the structure of the pastry paste that encloses the filling.

The step that matters

Frying the patties until nicely browned. Frying in hot oil browns the pastry through the Maillard reaction, which adds flavor and color. If the oil is not hot enough, the pastry absorbs oil and turns greasy while the filling may stay underheated.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, butter, egg, milk, flour):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, butter, egg, milk, flour. 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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