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Braised Beef or Pot Roast

A slow‑cooked beef roast braised in water and onion, finished with a thickened gravy seasoned with pepper, salt, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Tracy, Suzanne. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Braised Beef or Pot Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim and rub the beef roast with pepper and salt.

  2. Dice a large onion and brown it in salt pork fat.

  3. Place the roast in a braising pan.

  4. Pour one quart of boiling water over the roast.

  5. Add the browned onion to the pan.

Braise

  1. Cover tightly and bake in a moderate oven for about four hours, turning after two hours.

  2. Add more water as it evaporates to keep about three cups of gravy.

  3. When the meat is tender, remove it from the pan.

Finish the gravy

  1. Skim off the fat from the gravy.

  2. Thicken the gravy with a tablespoonful of flour wet in a little cold water, then strain into the gravy.

  3. Season the gravy with pepper, salt, and a little lemon juice.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

18Calories
1 gProtein
0 gFat
5 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Tracy, Suzanne. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Chuck roast
Provides the meat that becomes tender and flavorful during long, slow braising.
Onion (in the method)
Browning adds savory flavor and sweetness to the braising liquid and gravy.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the gravy as it is cooked and strained into the liquid.
Lemon juice
Adds a touch of acidity that brightens the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with flour wet in cold water. Flour must be mixed smoothly into cold water first; added dry or to hot liquid it clumps. Straining catches any lumps that still form.

“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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