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Baked Beef

A baked beef served with a vegetable soup thickened with browned flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Baked Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA sharp oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Roast the beef

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

  2. Place the beef in the oven for 20 minutes to harden the albumen.

  3. Reduce the oven temperature to 300°F (150°C) and cook the beef for 1 hour and 15 minutes, basting occasionally.

  4. Remove the beef and set aside.

Make the soup

  1. In the same pot, brown some onions, then add carrots, turnips, cloves, pepper, and salt.

  2. Add water to create a soup base and let it stew for 1.5 hours.

  3. Thicken the soup with browned flour, then serve the beef with the soup.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Its proteins set and brown at high heat, giving the roast a firm surface and savoury flavour.
Onions
Browning them in the pot adds sweetness and a deeper, savoury aroma to the soup.
Carrots
Slow stewing softens them and adds natural sweetness and body to the soup.
Turnips
Stewing softens them and adds a mild sweetness and body to the soup.
Browned flour
Its starch swells in the hot liquid and thickens the soup.

The step that matters

Start the beef at 400°F for 20 minutes. The high initial heat sets and browns the meat's surface, forming a crust that helps hold in juices and build flavour before the oven is lowered for slow cooking.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

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