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Roast Beef

A roasted beef loin or rib piece, basted with butter or suet, seasoned with salt, pepper, flour, and served with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Roast Beef

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Roast Beef

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Wipe the roast thoroughly with a clean, wet towel.

  3. Place the roast in a dripping pan and baste it well with butter or suet fat.

Roast

  1. Roast in the oven, basting frequently with its own drippings.

  2. When partly done, season with salt and pepper, then dredge with sifted flour.

  3. Roast for about 2 hours for a medium doneness, or 1.5 hours for rare.

  4. Remove the roast to a heated dish to keep warm.

Make the gravy

  1. Skim the fat from the drippings, add 1 tablespoon flour, a little pepper, and 1 teacup boiling water.

  2. Boil once and serve hot in a gravy 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.

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.

  1. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 or loin roast
Provides the main meat, whose fat and connective tissue keep it moist and flavorful as it cooks.
Butter or suet fat
Coats the surface during basting, promoting browning and adding richness to the crust.
Sifted flour
Dusted on the roast and whisked into drippings, it thickens the gravy and helps it cling.

The step that matters

Skim the fat from the drippings before making the gravy. Leaving too much fat makes the gravy greasy and it will not thicken well with flour. Keeping the browned juices gives flavor, so skim off the fat and keep the drippings.

“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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