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Breakfast Dish of Beef

A steamed beef dish cooked in a walnut catsup gravy.

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

Breakfast Dish of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut thin slices of cold roast beef.

Make the sauce

  1. In a tin saucepan, combine melted butter, walnut catsup, vinegar, salt, pepper, currant jelly, and warm water.

Steam

  1. Lay the beef slices in the saucepan and cover with the gravy mixture.

  2. Set the saucepan in a pot of boiling water and cover tightly.

  3. Steam for 30 minutes, ensuring the water in the outer vessel is at a hard boil.

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. Walnut + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

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

  3. Vinegar + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 is gently heated through in the sauce.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the gravy mixture.
Walnut catsup
Gives a deep, savoury flavour as the main seasoning of the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and catsup.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of vinegar and catsup.

The step that matters

Steam with the outer water at a hard boil. The outer pot must stay at a steady, hard boil so the sauce heats gently and evenly. If the water drops off the boil, the steam weakens and the beef takes longer to warm through, while a tight lid keeps the steam trapped around the saucepan.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, walnut, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, walnut, vinegar, pepper. 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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