Name: Baked Meats in General
Ingredients: 1 joint or piece of beef, mutton, or veal; 4 peeled potatoes; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); ½ cup water

Why it works: Beef and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Baked Meats in General

Ingredients

1 joint or piece of beef, mutton, or veal
4 peeled potatoes
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')
½ cup water

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Place the meat on an iron trivet in a tin or earthen dish.
Arrange the peeled potatoes under the meat.
Season with pepper and salt.
Pour the water under the meat.

Bake

Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until cooked through.

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.

Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,052 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef, mutton, or veal: Provides the main protein, which firms and browns as it cooks and gives the dish its body.
Potatoes: Absorb drippings from the meat below, becoming soft, savoury, and flavourful as they bake.
Water: Creates steam and moisture in the dish, helping the meat stay tender and keeping the drippings from scorching.