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Baked Meat

Layered roast beef baked with tomato, cracker crumbs, butter, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Baked Meat

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

  1. Slice the cold roast beef.

  2. In a pudding pan, layer the sliced beef.

Layer and bake

  1. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and butter.

  2. Add a layer of tomato and a few cracker crumbs.

  3. Repeat layers until the pan is full.

  4. Top with cracker crumbs, butter, and chopped parsley.

  5. Add a little water and bake in the oven at 350°F (175°C) until heated 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.

  1. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. 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

Cold roast beef
Forms the main body of the dish and is gently reheated through in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the layers stay tender and browning the top.
Tomato
Adds moisture and acidity that brightens the savory beef.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb juices and add body between the layers, helping hold the dish together.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, butter, parsley):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, butter, parsley. 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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