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Casserole Roast

A slow-baked beef casserole with vegetables and a simple gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Casserole Roast

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.

Brown the beef

  1. Render the fat from the salt pork in a pan.

  2. Brown the beef on both sides in the fat.

Casserole and roast

  1. Place the beef in a casserole dish with the chopped vegetables around it.

  2. Add 2 cups of water or stock.

  3. Cover and cook in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for three hours, basting occasionally.

Make the gravy

  1. To make a sauce or gravy, combine water, flour, and some of the juice left in the casserole.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, moist cooking.
Salt pork
Its rendered fat browns the beef and adds savory flavor.
Carrot, turnip, onion, and celery
Release sweetness and aroma into the casserole liquid as they cook.

The step that matters

Browning the beef on both sides. Browning creates deep flavor through the Maillard reaction. Pale meat gives a flat-tasting sauce, so the surface should be well coloured before the liquid goes in.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, turnip, onion, pork):

  1. Celerythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, onion, pork. 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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