Why it works: Pork and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓
Roasting Meat
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the oven
Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).
Roast the meat
For a leg of pork or lamb, roast for 20 minutes per pound plus an additional 15 minutes.
For a 10-pound beef roast, cook for 2.5 hours; for 20 pounds, 3.75 hours.
For a neck of mutton, roast for 1.5 hours.
Keep the meat at a distance from the fire, moving it closer as it heats up.
Baste the meat frequently to keep it moist.
When nearly done, dust the meat with flour to give it a frothy appearance.
If the meat is not fatty enough, use good dripping instead of butter for basting.
Avoid piercing the best parts of the meat with the spit and ensure it is clean before serving.
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.
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Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,690 recipes
Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).
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Beef + muttontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,373 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Pork + muttontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,239 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,933 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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
- Flour
- Dusted on near the end to form a frothy, lightly crisped surface on the meat.
- Good dripping or butter
- Fat used for basting, adding moisture and richness to the surface as it roasts.
The step that matters
Keeping the meat at a distance from the fire. Moving the meat closer only as it heats up lets the interior cook through gradually. Placing it too close early can scorch the outside before the centre is done.
“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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