Why it works: Beef and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,677 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Roast Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wipe the meat with a damp cloth.
Sprinkle flour over all sides of the meat.
Roast
Place the meat in a dripping pan on a trivet and surround it with ½ inch of water.
Roast for 20 minutes per pound.
Baste the meat with the liquid.
Finish
Salt the meat as soon as it is removed from the oven.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,677 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Beef and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 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
- Beef roast
- Is the main cut that gets cooked, so its size sets the total roasting time.
- Flour
- Dusted on the surface, it helps the outside brown and form a light crust.
The step that matters
Salt the meat as soon as it is removed from the oven.. Salt drawn in while the meat is hot seasons it through and is best applied right away, before the surface cools and the juices settle.
“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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