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Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding

Roast beef served with Yorkshire pudding made from flour, milk, eggs, and beef drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,759 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Roast the beef

  1. Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Place the beef roast on a rack in a roasting pan.

  3. Roast the beef for about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  4. About 45 minutes before the beef is done, pour off excess drippings, leaving enough to prevent sticking.

Make and bake the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine flour, milk, salt, and eggs. Beat well.

  2. Pour the batter into the roasting pan or a pie tin with some drippings.

  3. Replace the rack with the beef and bake for 45 minutes.

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 + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Forms the batter's structure, setting as the pudding bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and help the pudding rise as they set.
Milk
Provides the liquid whose steam lifts the batter and adds tenderness.
Beef drippings
Supply fat that coats the pan, prevents sticking, and adds browning and flavor.

The step that matters

Pour the batter into the drippings. The batter should go into the hot fat left in the pan. The fat sizzles on contact, starting the crust and helping the pudding rise rather than sink.

“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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