Why it works: Beef and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,677 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Roast Beef
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Roast
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Roast the beef for 2 hours, allowing 10 minutes for each pound over or under this weight.
Keep the meat away from the fire at first.
When the beef is halfway done, remove the fat from the roaster and baste the meat with its drippings 2-3 times.
Finish and brown
Do not add salt or flour until nearly done.
Just before serving, sprinkle a little salt and flour on the beef, baste it well, and move it closer to the fire to brown.
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 + 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 roast, and its drippings provide the flavor used for basting.
- Flour
- Added near the end, it helps the surface brown and form a light crust.
The step that matters
Adding salt and flour near the end. Salt drawn onto the surface early pulls out moisture and can keep the outside from browning well. Holding it until nearly done keeps the crust dry enough to brown, and basting during the final stage builds color and flavor.
“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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