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Cold Roast Beef

A casserole of sliced roast beef layered with gravy, water, and mashed potatoes, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Cold Roast Beef

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Assemble

  1. Fill a small pudding dish with slices of beef, sprinkling each layer with salt, pepper, and flour.

  2. Pour over the beef gravy and a little more water.

  3. Cover with mashed potatoes about an inch thick.

Bake

  1. Heat thoroughly and brown in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

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 + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold roast beef
Forms the main body of the casserole and provides the meaty flavor.
Flour
Helps thicken the juices and gravy as the casserole heats.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savory flavor that keeps the beef from drying out.
Mashed potatoes
Forms a topping that browns in the oven and seals in moisture below.

The step that matters

Heat thoroughly and brown in the oven. The beef is already cooked, so the goal is to heat it through evenly. Baking long enough lets the center reach a safe, hot temperature while the potato top browns.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Okrafits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, 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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