Name: Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding
Ingredients: 1 pint milk; 2 eggs; 2 cups prepared flour (or 2 cups plain flour with 1 teaspoon baking powder); 1 teaspoon salt; 4-5 tablespoons beef dripping

Why it works: Milk and beef 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

1 pint milk
2 eggs
2 cups prepared flour (or 2 cups plain flour with 1 teaspoon baking powder)
1 teaspoon salt
4-5 tablespoons beef dripping

Directions

Prepare

Roast the beef in the usual way.
When the beef is nearly done, remove 4-5 tablespoons of dripping from the roaster and keep it warm in a bake-pan.
Sift the salt and baking powder with the flour.
Beat the eggs until very light, then add them to the milk.

Make and bake the batter

Pour the milk and egg mixture into the flour, stirring swiftly and lightly with a wooden spoon.
Heat the dripping until it is hissing, then pour in the batter.
Bake quickly until golden brown.

Serve

Cut the pudding into oblong pieces and arrange them around the beef as a garnish.

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.

Milk + beeftop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,759 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour + beeftop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked 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: Bind the batter and provide structure as the pudding sets in the oven.
Flour: Forms the main structure that holds the risen batter together.
Milk: Hydrates the flour and adds moisture, helping the batter puff in the hot fat.
Beef dripping: Heats to a hot sizzling state so the batter sets quickly and browns with a crisp edge.

The step that matters

Heat the dripping until hissing before adding the batter. The batter must hit very hot fat so its outside sets and begins to rise immediately. If the fat is not hot enough, the pudding spreads, stays dense and browns poorly.

“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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Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding