Why it works: Beef and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,677 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Pot Roast of Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Wipe the meat with a cloth dampened in warm water.
Sear the meat in a hot frying pan until browned all over.
If using a kettle, add 1 cup of water and keep it just below boiling.
Transfer the browned meat to the kettle and rinse the frying pan with water, adding it to the kettle.
Add salt and monitor the water level to prevent it from boiling away before the meat is tender.
Once the meat is browned on both sides, remove it and make gravy by adding a little flour and hot water.
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.
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Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
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