Why it works: Beef and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,759 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓
Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding
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
Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).
Set the beef on a rack or muffin rings in a roasting pan.
Roast and bake
Roast the beef until done, allowing juices to drip into the pan.
In a bowl, mix the milk, beaten eggs, salt, and flour until smooth.
Pour the mixture into the pan under the meat 30 minutes before the beef is done.
Serve
Cut the Yorkshire pudding into pieces and serve with the roast.
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.
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Beef + milktop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,759 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,677 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Beef
- Provides the main cooked meat and the drippings that flavour the pudding below.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and help it set and rise as it bakes.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the batter so the pudding holds its shape.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and helps the batter cook into a tender, airy pudding.
The step that matters
Pouring the batter under the meat. The batter must go into hot drippings about 30 minutes before the beef is done so it has time to bake and rise. Pouring it too late leaves the pudding underbaked and flat.
“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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