Name: 61 Eggs with Dried Beef
Ingredients: ¼ pound dried beef; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 cup milk; 3 eggs

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

61 Eggs with Dried Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

¼ pound dried beef
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup milk
3 eggs

Directions

Melt the butter in a pan.
Add the shredded dried beef and let it simmer for a few minutes.
Beat the eggs and mix them with the milk.
Stir the egg mixture into the pan with the beef.
Serve as soon as the eggs are set.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,759 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,847 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 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 beef: Supplies the salty, savory flavor and the meaty chew of the dish.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and helps the eggs cook gently without sticking.
Milk: Adds moisture so the eggs stay soft and creamy rather than dry.
Eggs: Set with heat to bind the dish into soft, custard-like curds.

The step that matters

Serve as soon as the eggs are set. Egg proteins tighten quickly with heat, so eggs left on the heat past the set point turn dry and rubbery. Removing them while still glossy keeps them tender.

“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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61 Eggs with Dried Beef