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Cross-rib Pot Roast

A slow-cooked cross-rib roast with onion, carrot, cloves, and water, seasoned with sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Cross-rib Pot Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and sear

  1. Rub the roast with onion.

  2. Place the roast in a hot kettle and sear all sides for 15 minutes.

Braise

  1. Add 1 cup of hot water, chopped carrot, and cloves.

  2. Do not add salt until the roast is nearly done.

  3. Cook on very low heat for 4 hours, adding a little water occasionally.

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cross-rib roast
Its connective tissue softens during long, slow cooking, making the meat tender.
Onion
Rubbed on the roast, it adds savory aroma and flavor to the meat.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and moisture to the cooking liquid as it softens.

The step that matters

Do not add salt until the roast is nearly done. Salt added early can draw moisture out of the meat and change its texture, so it is best seasoned near the end of cooking.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, clove. 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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