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Roast Beef, with Yorkshire Pudding

A roast beef served with a baked Yorkshire pudding made from a batter of flour, eggs, milk, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Roast Beef, with Yorkshire Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs until light.

  2. Add salt and milk to the eggs.

  3. Pour about ½ cup of the mixture into the flour and mix until smooth.

  4. Add the remaining mixture.

Roast the beef

  1. Prepare the rib or sirloin roast for roasting.

  2. Butter a pan.

  3. Pour the batter into the pan.

  4. Place a rack across the pan and set the meat on it.

  5. Return to the oven.

  6. Cook for 45 minutes.

Make the pudding and serve

  1. Remove the meat from the pan.

  2. Pour off the gravy.

  3. Pour the pudding batter into the pan.

  4. Bake the pudding for 30 minutes.

  5. Serve hot with the beef.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

Eggs
Set during baking to give the pudding its structure and help it rise.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the pudding its body and shape.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps the pudding brown as it bakes.
Rib or sirloin roast
Is the main meat, and its rendered fat and juices form the gravy.

The step that matters

Pour the batter into a hot, greased pan. Batter poured into hot fat sizzles at once, which starts the rise. A cold or under-heated pan lets the batter spread and turn heavy and flat instead of puffing up around the sides.

“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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