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Second Day of Roast Beef

A layered roast beef casserole baked slowly with tomatoes, spices, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Summer savory and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 125 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Second Day of Roast Beef

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.

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the beef into slices, removing most of the fat.

  2. Rub each slice in flour.

Layer and season

  1. Layer the beef slices in a covered earthen dish, alternating with layers of tomatoes.

  2. Sprinkle each layer with pepper, coarse sea salt, summer savory, sweet marjoram, and curry powder if desired.

  3. Pour cold gravy over the top, adding just enough water to cover the meat.

  4. Add two or three whole cloves.

Bake and brown

  1. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for three to four hours, adding flour if the gravy is not thick enough.

  2. About twenty minutes before serving, remove the cover and brown the top.

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. Summer savory + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together125 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Marjoram + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Summer savory + clovetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef slices
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender during the long, slow bake.
Flour
Coats the beef and thickens the gravy as it cooks.
Canned tomatoes or fresh tomatoes
Adds moisture and acidity that flavour the meat and gravy.
Cold gravy
Provides liquid and richness that keeps the meat moist during baking.

The step that matters

Baking time and gravy thickness. Three to four hours at a low 300°F lets tough connective tissue break down slowly, keeping the meat moist. Checking the gravy and adding flour only if needed prevents a thin, watery sauce or a pasty one.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, pepper, summer savory, marjoram, clove. 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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