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Sour Roast

A beef roast preserved in a vinegar and water brine, then roasted with spices and fat.

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

Marinate

  1. Boil 1 quart of vinegar and dilute it with 1 quart of boiling water.

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

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

Roast and serve

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

  2. Roast the beef for a while, then stir 1 tablespoon of flour into the fat.

  3. Add water and the spiced herbs, cover well, and roast for 2 to 3 hours.

  4. If desired, add water or buttermilk to the gravy before serving.

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

Beef rump
Forms the main meat, which becomes tender after long soaking and slow roasting.
Vinegar
Acidity in the marinade softens the meat and gives the dish its sour flavor.
Bacon or suet
Fat over the beef bastes it during roasting, keeping it moist.
Flour
Stirred into the hot fat to thicken the gravy.
Buttermilk
Optional addition to the gravy that adds tang and creaminess.

The step that matters

Marinating the beef for several days. Vinegar is acidic and slowly penetrates and softens the tough connective tissue of the rump. Too short a soak leaves the meat firm and sharply sour on the surface only.

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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