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Pot Roast

A pot roast made with beef, suet, vegetables, and seasonings, simmered and roasted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Pot Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and sear

  1. Trim the meat and remove bones.

  2. Sear the meat in suet.

Simmer and roast

  1. Simmer for 2 hours in hot water with vegetables and seasoning.

  2. Roast for 2 hours in a kettle.

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. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

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

  5. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef
Its connective tissue breaks down during long cooking, making the meat tender and moist.
Suet
Its fat browns the meat when searing and carries flavor through the pot.
Hot water
Provides the cooking liquid that moistens the meat during simmering.
Onion
Releases savory, sweet aromas into the cooking liquid as it softens.
Carrot
Adds mild sweetness and body to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Sear the meat in suet. Searing over high heat triggers the Maillard reaction, which creates browned, savory flavor on the surface. Pale, unseared meat tastes flatter, so the surface should be well browned before simmering.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, carrot, beef):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, carrot, beef. 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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