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Cold Roast Beef Broiled

Slices of rare roast beef marinated in oil and vinegar, then broiled and seasoned with butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cold Roast Beef Broiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the rare roast beef into slices ½ inch thick.

  2. Lay the slices on a plate with ½ cup salad oil and 1 tablespoon vinegar for 30 minutes.

  3. Dust the meat with pepper.

  4. Turn the slices after 30 minutes.

Broil and serve

  1. After 1 hour, broil the beef over a hot fire without wiping off the oil and vinegar.

  2. Broil quickly.

  3. Serve immediately.

  4. Season with butter, coarse sea salt, and pepper.

  5. Garnish with lemon, parsley, or watercress.

  6. Serve with sliced fresh tomatoes or cucumbers.

  7. Serve with freshly grated horseradish dressed with vinegar and salt.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + watercresstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together469 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Lemon + watercresstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together579 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rare roast beef
Forms the main body of the dish and is cooked by quick broiling.
Salad oil
Coats the slices, adding moisture and helping them brown under high heat.
Vinegar
Acidity in the marinade tenderises the surface and adds a sharp flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour over the warm meat.

The step that matters

Broil quickly. Rare beef is already cooked inside, so a short, very hot broil browns the surface without overcooking the centre. Lingering over the heat would turn the slices grey and tough.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, vinegar, pepper, butter, parsley, watercress, tomato):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Cherryfits less well

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