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
Prepare the beef
Remove the ends of the ribs from the flank and fold the flank under the beef, securing it with skewers.
Rub a little coarse sea salt into the fat part of the beef.
Roast
Place the meat in a dripping pan with 1 pint of stock or water.
For the first 20 minutes, turn the rib side up toward the fire.
Baste the meat freely and dredge with flour half an hour before removing it from the oven.
If the oven is very hot, cover the meat with buttered paper to prevent scorching.
Make the gravy
Skim the fat from the gravy and add 1 tablespoon of prepared brown flour to the remainder.
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 supplies the meat that is cooked and served.
- Flour
- Dredged over the meat to form a browned crust and thicken the gravy.
- Prepared brown flour
- Thickens the remaining gravy and adds colour and a toasted flavour.
- Stock or water
- Moistens the dripping pan so the meat roasts gently and forms the base of the gravy.
The step that matters
Covering the meat in a very hot oven. Very high heat can scorch the surface before the inside cooks through. Covering with buttered paper shields the exterior from direct heat while the interior continues to cook.
“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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