Why it works: Beef and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,677 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Roast Beef
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Place the rib of beef in a dripping pan.
Season to taste and dust a little flour over the meat.
Roast and serve
Roast in the oven, basting occasionally with stock or gravy.
Turn the meat as needed until cooked to your preference.
Remove from the oven and serve with the pan gravy.
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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Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,677 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Beef and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rib of beef
- Is the main cut of meat that cooks through and forms the centre of the dish.
- Flour
- Dusted over the surface to help the outside brown and form a light crust.
- Stock or gravy
- Basting liquid that keeps the surface moist and adds flavour to the drippings that become the pan gravy.
The step that matters
Turn the meat as needed until cooked to your preference. Large cuts of meat cook unevenly, with the outside heating faster than the centre. Turning helps even out the heat, and because the interior temperature rises steadily, overcooking can happen quickly, leaving the meat dry and grey.
“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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