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Baked Meats

A method of roasting trimmed meat on a spit with drippings, water, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Meat and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,533 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Baked Meats

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

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Skewer the trimmed meat firmly to a spit, hanging it near the center of the fire.

  3. Place the roaster about 12 inches from the fire with melted drippings and a little water in the bottom.

Roast and baste

  1. Baste the meat thoroughly as soon as it is ready.

  2. Repeat basting every 15 minutes.

  3. Roast the meat for 20 minutes per pound.

  4. Move the roaster closer to the fire halfway through the roasting time.

  5. Dredge the meat lightly with flour when it is half done.

Finish

  1. Remove any paper covering.

  2. Increase the heat about 20 minutes before finishing.

  3. Dredge the meat again with flour.

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. Meat + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Meat + flourtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,529 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

Meat
The main protein, which cooks through while its outer surface browns in the heat.
Beef drippings
Fat that coats the meat during basting, adding flavor and keeping the surface moist.
Flour
Dredging creates a light coating that helps the surface brown and crisp.

The step that matters

Increase the heat about 20 minutes before finishing. A floured, fat-coated surface browns quickly at high heat, so it can scorch if left unattended. Watch it closely while the meat finishes cooking through.

“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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