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Southern Pot Roast

A slow‑cooked pork shoulder with onions and tomatoes, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Southern Pot Roast

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the base

  1. Fry the trimmings in a suitable pan for the roast.

  2. Remove cracklings and all fat except for 1 tablespoon.

  3. Add flour and brown slowly.

  4. Add the sliced onion and brown slightly.

Braise the roast

  1. Stir in the canned tomatoes.

  2. Season the pork shoulder with salt and pepper, then add it to the pan.

  3. Cook in a fireless cooker for 4 hours, or in a heavy iron or crockery pot in a 300°F (150°C) oven.

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  4. Pork + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,843 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pork shoulder
Main meat that becomes tender and moist during long, slow cooking.
Canned tomatoes
Provide liquid and acidity that form the sauce and help tenderize the meat.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savory depth as it browns in the fat.
Flour
Browns in the fat to add color and flavor and thickens the sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the flour slowly. Cooking flour gently in fat develops a nutty, toasted color and flavor and thickens the sauce. If the heat is too high, the flour scorches and turns bitter, and the sauce tastes burnt.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, tomato, pepper, flour. 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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