Skip to main content
Main

Pot-roast

A slow‑cooked pot roast with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Pot-roast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Brown the meat on all sides in a hot skillet.

  2. Place the meat in an agateware pot and pour in 1 cup of boiling water.

  3. Cover the pot closely and boil for 1 minute, then turn the meat and boil the other side.

  4. Remove the meat to a platter and place a meat rack in the pot, ensuring it is at least 2 inches above the water.

  5. Dredge the meat with flour and dust with black pepper, then place it on the rack.

Cook and make the gravy

  1. Cover the pot and cook gently for 3 hours, adding more boiling water as needed to maintain the original amount.

  2. After 2.5 hours, sprinkle ½ teaspoon of salt and 1 tablespoon of parsley over the meat.

  3. Remove the rack and stir 1 dessertspoon of flour blended with cold water into the gravy, adding salt to taste.

  4. Re-cover the pot and simmer gently for the last 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve the meat on a warm platter, garnished with parsley or celery, and pour the gravy into a sauceboat.

  2. If desired, fry a piece of suet and serve it alongside the meat.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Meat + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,040 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
Long gentle simmering breaks down connective tissue, leaving the cut tender and moist.
Flour
Dredging coats the meat and later thickens the cooking liquid into gravy.
Suet
Rendered fat adds richness and flavour to the dish when served alongside the meat.

The step that matters

Keeping the meat above the water. The rack must sit at least 2 inches above the liquid so the meat steams and braises rather than boiling, which would toughen the surface and dilute the flavour.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Jalapenofits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, flour, pepper. 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.

More pot roast recipes

Beef 9Beef 5Mutton 4Veal 4Chicken 3Veal 3 See all 137 →

You might also like

Meat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipesMeat CakesMeat Cakes35 recipes