Why it works: Flour and butter 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 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Roast
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Place the beef roast in a dripping pan and pour boiling water over it.
Cook for about 10 minutes per pound, basting often.
If there is excess fat, cover it with a paste of flour and water until the meat is nearly done.
Ten minutes before removing from the oven, dredge the roast with flour and baste once with butter.
Make the gravy
To make gravy, pour off excess fat, thicken the drippings with browned flour, season, and boil once.
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.
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,847 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,677 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Beef roast
- Is the main protein; its fat and juices form the drippings used for gravy.
- Flour
- Forms a paste that shields excess fat and, browned, thickens the drippings into gravy.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness to the roast's surface as it bastes.
The step that matters
Basting the roast. Basting often keeps the surface moist and helps the meat brown evenly, so the outside does not dry out before the inside is cooked.
“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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