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Beef, Baked

A baked dish of sliced roast beef layered with carrots, turnip, onion, herbs, and gravy, topped with crust or mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Beef, Baked

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 the beef

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Sprinkle the beef slices with salt and a dusting of flour.

  3. Roll the beef slices with a small portion of fat between each roll and place them in a pie dish.

Layer and bake

  1. Parboil the sliced carrots and turnip, then layer them with the onion and minced herbs over the beef.

  2. Repeat layering with remaining beef slices.

  3. Dust the vegetables with pepper and salt.

  4. Mix 1 teaspoon of flour with ½ pint of gravy and 2-3 tablespoons of ale, then pour this mixture into the dish.

  5. Cover with a crust or mashed potatoes and bake for 45 minutes.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

Roast beef
Forms the main body of the dish and carries its savoury, meaty flavour.
Carrots
Add sweetness and a tender texture after parboiling and baking.
Turnip
Adds a mild, slightly peppery flavour and soft texture to the layers.
Onion
Adds aroma and sweetness as it cooks under the crust.
Gravy
Provides moisture and savoury flavour that keeps the beef from drying out.
Flour
Thickens the gravy mixture so it clings to the beef and vegetables.

The step that matters

Pour the gravy mixture into the dish before covering. The thickened liquid must be evenly distributed among the layers so the beef stays moist during baking and the flour can thicken the sauce properly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, carrot, turnip, 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.

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