Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. 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
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Wipe the meat and place it skin side down in a dripping pan.
Rub the meat with salt and pepper, then dredge with flour.
Roast
Sear the meat in the hot oven to lock in juices.
Once the flour in the pan is brown, reduce the heat and baste with the fat.
Turn the meat halfway through cooking and dredge with more flour.
Cook for 1 hour per 5 pounds for rare, or 1 hour and 20 minutes for well done.
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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Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,971 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,677 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Beef and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 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
- Forms the main body of the dish and sets the texture as it cooks.
- Flour
- Dredged onto the meat and browns in the pan, building a crust and flavorful drippings.
- Fat from the pan
- Bastes the meat, adding moisture and helping the surface brown.
The step that matters
Searing in the hot oven. The initial high heat browns the surface and begins forming a crust. Meat cooked too gently at the start may lose juices and brown less well, so the oven must be fully preheated first.
“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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