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Cold Roast, Warmed

Reheated lean meat from a cold roast with onion and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cold Roast, Warmed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the lean meat from the cold roast into small, thin pieces.

  2. Heat a frying pan over medium heat and add the butter or drippings.

  3. Add the chopped onion and fry until brown, then remove the onion.

Make the gravy and heat the meat

  1. Pour in the meat gravy; if it's not thick enough, stir in the flour.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then add the meat pieces.

  3. Let the meat simmer for a few minutes until heated through.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

Lean meat from cold roast
Provides the main protein; slicing it thin lets it heat through quickly without drying out.
Meat gravy from previous day
Supplies moisture and savory flavor that coats the meat as it reheats.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it clings to the meat, if the gravy is too thin.
Onion
Browned in fat to add sweetness and savory depth to the dish.
Butter or drippings
Adds fat for frying the onion and carries savory flavor into the dish.

The step that matters

Let the meat simmer until heated through. Reheating cooked meat too hard or too long toughens its proteins and dries the surface, so gentle simmering in gravy keeps it tender while warming it evenly.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, butter, flour, 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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