Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Pot Roast
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the meat
Pour 1 pint of boiling water into a pot.
Add the meat and steam for 2 hours.
Season with salt and pepper, then steam until tender.
Add some butter and brown the meat in the pot.
Serve
Transfer to a platter and serve with gravy thickened with a little flour.
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.
-
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,442 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
-
Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,781 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
-
Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
What each ingredient does
- Leg of mutton, lamb, or veal
- Provides the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long, moist steaming.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, and helps the meat's surface brown and taste savory.
- Flour
- Thickens the cooking juices into a smooth gravy for serving.
The step that matters
Brown the meat in the pot. After steaming, the meat's surface is moist, so it may steam rather than brown. Browning needs a fairly dry surface and enough heat for Maillard reactions, which create color and savory flavor.
“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.
More pot roast recipes
You might also like
Mutton Broth292 recipes
Haricot Mutton59 recipes
Mutton Soup56 recipes
Curried Mutton9 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.