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Larded Beef

A roast beef stuffed with fat salt pork, simmered in gravy and thickened with browned flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Larded Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Make perpendicular incisions in the cold roast and insert lardoons of fat salt pork closely together.

  2. Combine the fat from the cold gravy with minced onion and catsup, then add boiling water.

Roast

  1. Place the meat in a dripping pan and pour the gravy over it.

  2. Cover with another pan and cook in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour.

  3. Turn the meat once and baste it six times with the gravy.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the meat.

  2. Strain the gravy.

  3. Thicken the gravy with browned flour.

  4. Boil the thickened gravy.

  5. Serve the meat in a sauce boat.

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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Cold roast beef
Forms the main body of the dish, carrying the lardoons and gravy.
Fat salt pork (lardoons)
Adds fat and richness, moistening the lean beef as it cooks.
Fat from cold gravy
Carries flavor and fat into the gravy base for basting.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the meat and the sauce boat.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with browned flour. Flour needs to be fully incorporated and the gravy kept boiling after adding it, otherwise it can stay lumpy and raw-tasting while failing to thicken evenly.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pork, flour):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Turnipfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, 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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