Name: Spiced Beef
Ingredients: 2 pounds raw round steak, finely chopped; 6 soda biscuits, finely crushed; 1 cup milk; 2 eggs, beaten; 1 tablespoon salt; 2 teaspoons pepper; spices to taste; butter for greasing

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Spiced Beef

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, combine the chopped steak, crushed soda biscuits, milk, beaten eggs, salt, pepper, and spices.
Butter an earthenware jar, ensuring the top is as wide as the bottom.
Press the mixture lightly into the jar.
Cover the mixture with a layer of butter about ½ inch thick.

Bake and serve

Cover the jar with a plate and bake for 2 hours.
Serve whole or cut into slices; also nice served cold.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Biscuit + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together841 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Biscuit + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,009 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Biscuit + milktop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,332 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw round steak: Provides the meat base that gives the loaf its body and savory flavor.
Soda biscuits: Crumbs absorb liquid and help bind the meat into a sliceable mass.
Eggs: Bind the mixture and set during baking to hold the loaf together.
Milk: Adds moisture so the meat stays tender rather than dry during baking.

“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.