Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓
Hints on Roasting Meat
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Cut the beef into chunks of 7 to 10 pounds each and remove bones from large roasts.
Dredge both sides of the meat with flour, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.
Place a piece of fat suet, bacon, or pork on each piece of meat.
Roast
Pour hot meat broth or boiling water over the meat to moisten it.
Turn the meat halfway through cooking and add onions and broth to make gravy.
An hour before the meat is done, add pared potatoes to bake until brown.
Keep the oven closed until ready to serve.
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 + porktop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,690 recipes
Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).
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Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,023 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,668 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
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Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,092 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,052 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
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, providing the meat that is roasted and served.
- Flour
- Coats the surface, helping the meat brown and giving the gravy body.
- Fat suet, bacon, or pork
- Adds fat that bastes the meat and keeps it moist as it roasts.
- Hot meat broth or boiling water
- Adds moisture to the meat and forms the base of the gravy.
- Onions
- Add sweetness and aroma to the drippings used for the gravy.
The step that matters
Keep the oven closed until ready to serve. Opening the oven releases heat and drops the temperature, which slows cooking and can dry the surface. Holding the heat steady keeps the roast cooking evenly and moist.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, pepper, pork, meat, potato):
- Capsicumfits about as well
- Onionthe original
- Asparagusfits about as well
- Carrotfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, pepper, pork, meat, potato. 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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