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Pot Roast

A pot roast made by searing meat and slow cooking it in boiling water with salt, pepper, and flour for gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Pot Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Sear the meat

  1. Heat an iron pot or granite kettle until very hot.

  2. Sear the meat on all sides without piercing it.

  3. Lift the meat to turn.

Cook and make the gravy

  1. Pour in 1½ pints of boiling water and let it cook slowly for 1½ hours.

  2. Ensure it continues to boil, adding hot water as needed.

  3. Turn the meat halfway through cooking.

  4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  5. Allow the liquid to simmer down and brown.

  6. Add flour to make a thick gravy.

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
Forms the main body of the dish; searing it first builds browned flavor on the surface.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy as its starch swells with heat.

The step that matters

Sear the meat on all sides without piercing it. A hot pot and an unpierced surface let the meat form a browned crust through the Maillard reaction, which adds deep flavor. Piercing lets juices escape and dries the meat.

“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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