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Roast Beef

Roast beef served with Yorkshire pudding.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Roast Beef

Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Roast Beef

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 the beef

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

  2. Dredge the beef lightly with flour and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Place the beef in the oven and baste frequently while roasting.

  4. Roast for 15 minutes per pound for rare, longer for well done.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, mix the drippings with Worcestershire sauce and tomato ketchup, then thicken with browned flour.

Make the Yorkshire pudding

  1. For Yorkshire pudding, mix milk, beaten egg yolks, flour, and salt until smooth.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the batter.

  3. Place the beef on a grating over a dripping pan and pour the pudding batter into the pan 45 minutes before the beef is done.

  4. Drain excess fat if necessary, leaving enough to prevent sticking.

  5. Cut the pudding into squares and serve around the beef.

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.

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.

  1. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites beaten stiff add lift and airy structure to the Yorkshire pudding batter.
Flour
Forms the batter's structure and, browned, thickens the sauce.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness to the batter, helping it set in the hot oven.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savory, tangy depth to the pan drippings sauce.

The step that matters

Pour the batter 45 minutes before the beef is done. The batter needs a very hot oven and hot fat to puff and set. Adding it too early lets it cook too long and collapse, while adding it too late leaves it underbaked and dense.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, pepper, sauce, ketchup, milk, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Horseradishfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, pepper, sauce, ketchup, milk, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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