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Sour Roast

A beef roast cured in vinegar and spices, then roasted with bacon or suet, served with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Sour Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the marinade

  1. Boil the vinegar and dilute it with boiling water.

  2. Add bay leaves, cloves, whole pepper, and onions for flavor.

Marinate the beef

  1. Pour the mixture over the beef rubbed with coarse sea salt and let it stand for several days.

  2. Remove the beef from the liquid, cover it with bacon or suet, and place it in hot fat.

Roast and make the gravy

  1. Roast for a while, then stir in flour and add water and spiced herbs.

  2. Cover and roast for 2 to 3 hours.

  3. Add water or buttermilk to the gravy if desired.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Vinegar
Sours and tenderizes the beef during the long soak, giving the meat its tangy flavor.
Beef (rump piece)
Main cut; the long braise breaks down its connective tissue into a tender roast.
Bacon or suet
Adds fat that coats the beef and carries flavor and browning during roasting.
Flour
Thickens the pan liquids into a gravy.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma to the marinade and the gravy.

The step that matters

Marinating the beef for several days. The acidic vinegar mixture must soak the whole piece long enough to penetrate and soften the meat. Too short a soak leaves the centre firm and under-flavoured, and the vinegar's sharpness overwhelms the beef if the surface is left too long without the rest of the mixture.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, onion, beef, flour, buttermilk. 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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