Why it works: Beef and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,759 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓
Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
In a bowl, mix the milk, beaten eggs, salt, and flour until smooth.
Roast and bake
Set the beef on a rack or muffin rings in a roasting pan.
Roast the beef until done, about 1 hour.
Pour the mixture into the pan under the meat during the last hour of roasting.
Serve
Cut the Yorkshire pudding into pieces and serve with the roast.
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 + milktop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,759 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,677 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Eggs
- Provide structure and lift, setting the batter as it bakes.
- Flour
- Forms the gluten framework that gives the pudding its body.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and helps the batter steam and puff in the hot pan.
The step that matters
Pour the batter under the meat during the last hour of roasting. The batter must go into a very hot pan with hot beef fat so it sets quickly and puffs. A cold or cool pan, or a batter that sits too long, produces a flat, dense pudding.
“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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