Skip to main content
Main

A Pot Roast

A pot roast is a slow‑cooked meat dish simmered in water and thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

A Pot Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown

  1. Wipe the meat with a damp cloth and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Place the meat in an iron pot over moderate heat and brown it slowly for about 20 minutes, turning frequently.

  3. Add ½ pint of boiling water to the pot.

  4. Cover the pot.

Braise

  1. Reduce the heat to cook slowly.

  2. Wait until the water has steamed away.

  3. Add ½ pint of water.

  4. Cook for about 15 minutes per pound, or double the time if the meat is tough.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Remove the meat from the pot.

  2. Add a small amount of water to the juices in the pot.

  3. Thicken the gravy with flour mixed with a little water.

  4. Serve the gravy separately.

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.

  1. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Meat + flourtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,529 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Long slow cooking in moist heat softens tough connective tissue into tender meat.
Flour
Starch thickens the cooking juices into a smooth gravy as it heats.
Black pepper
Adds a sharp, aromatic bite that seasons the meat and gravy.

The step that matters

Brown the meat slowly. Browning the surface over moderate heat builds deep, savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction, which then carries into the juices and gravy. Turning often prevents scorching while the surface colours evenly.

“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.

More pot roast recipes

Beef 9Beef 5Mutton 4Veal 4Chicken 3Veal 3 See all 137 →

You might also like

Meat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipesMince MeatMince Meat37 recipesMeat CakesMeat Cakes35 recipes