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Pot Roast of Beef

A pot roast made with beef, onion, carrot, cloves, pepper, suet, and water simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Pot Roast of Beef

Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Pot Roast of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer

  1. Combine the beef, onion, carrot, cloves, pepper, suet, and water in a large pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer slowly for 3 to 4 hours.

Brown and make gravy

  1. Remove the beef from the pot.

  2. Brown the beef in the pot.

  3. Make gravy from the drippings.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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
Provides the meat that becomes tender through long, slow simmering.
Suet
Adds fat that enriches the broth and the gravy made from it.
Onion
Adds aroma and subtle sweetness as it softens in the liquid.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and body to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly after boiling. Once the mixture boils, the heat must drop so it only simmers. A hard, vigorous boil toughens meat fibers and can leave the beef dry and chewy, while a gentle simmer slowly breaks down connective tissue over the 3 to 4 hours.

Swap the clove

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

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

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