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Cold Roast, Warmed

Reheated cold roast beef with butter, onion, gravy, and seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cold Roast, Warmed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the cold roast beef into small, thin pieces.

  2. In a frying pan, heat the butter or drippings over medium heat.

  3. Chop the onion and fry until brown, then remove it from the pan.

Make the gravy and heat the beef

  1. Add the meat gravy to the pan; if it's not thick enough, stir in a little flour.

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

  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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Cold roast beef
Provides the meat, which is gently reheated so it stays tender and warm.
Meat gravy
Adds moisture and savory flavor, coating the slices as they heat.
Butter or drippings
Adds fat to the pan for frying the onion and carrying flavor.
Flour
Thickens the gravy if it is not thick enough.

The step that matters

Let the meat simmer until heated through. Thin slices can toughen and dry out if overheated, so keep the heat gentle and stop once the meat is warmed through.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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