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Koast Beef

A roasted beef prepared by boiling, seasoning, and baking, served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Koast Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the beef

  1. Wash the beef.

  2. Pour boiling water over the beef to set the juices.

  3. Rub pepper, coarse sea salt, and flour all over the beef.

Roast

  1. Place the beef on the stove with water in the dripping pan.

  2. When the water boils, put the beef into a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

  3. Baste the beef with the juices from the dripping pan.

Make the gravy

  1. Stir flour and water to make a paste.

  2. Use the paste to create gravy from the drippings after removing the roast.

  3. Do not boil the gravy quickly.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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
Is the main cut that is roasted, giving the dish its body and savory flavor.
Flour
Coats the outside and thickens the drippings into gravy.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the beef surface and helps draw out flavor during roasting.

The step that matters

Do not boil the gravy quickly. Rapid boiling can make a flour-thickened gravy lumpy and thin, because the starch can clump and the sauce can break down. Gentle heat keeps it smooth and evenly thickened.

“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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