Why it works: Flour and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,874 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
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.
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Brown a little suet in a dripping pan.
Add sufficient boiling water and a little coarse sea salt to baste the meat.
Place the roast on a grate or rods across the pan.
Dredge the meat well with flour.
Baste the roast every 15 minutes.
Cover the thin and fatty parts of the beef with bits of paper dipped in gravy to prevent overcooking.
Serve with currant jelly and suitable vegetables like mashed potatoes, turnips, and squash.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,874 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Potato + turniptop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together562 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,052 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
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Beef + turniptop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,940 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
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Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,355 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, potato, turnip):
- Raisinfits better
- Avocadofits better
- Limefits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, potato, turnip. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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