Name: Roast Beef with Horseradish
Ingredients: beef roast; horseradish; coarse sea salt; potatoes or parsnips; butter

Why it works: Horseradish and potato work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 171 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Roast Beef with Horseradish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Season the beef roast with coarse sea salt.
Roast the beef until cooked to your liking.
Serve with grated horseradish on the side.
Boil potatoes or parsnips until tender.
Drain and toss with melted butter 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.

Horseradish + potatotop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together171 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,052 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Beef + horseradishtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together491 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,847 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).