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Roast Beef

Roast Beef is a seasoned rib or loin roast cooked in a hot oven and basted with hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Roast Beef

Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Roast Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wipe and trim the meat.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Place in a roasting pan and lay thin slices of onion on top.

  4. Dredge the meat with flour.

Roast

  1. Put the meat into a very hot oven (400°F / 200°C).

  2. Wait until the meat is seared.

  3. Reduce the heat.

  4. Baste the meat with ½ cup of hot water.

  5. Cook for about 20 minutes for each pound.

  6. Turn the meat to brown the bottom.

  7. Baste frequently with the pan juices or more hot water if necessary.

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.

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.

  1. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Forms the main body of the dish and supplies the flavour and juices that the pan drippings come from.
Flour
Coats the surface so it browns and forms a flavourful crust during roasting.
Onion
Sits on the meat and perfumes the pan juices as they form, adding aroma.

The step that matters

Searing in a very hot oven before reducing the heat. A very hot oven browns the flour coating and meat surface quickly, building crust and flavour. If the heat is not reduced afterward, the outside can over-darken or dry out before the centre cooks through.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, 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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