Why it works: Horse and radish work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 529 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓
Roasting Meat
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the meat
Hang the meat so the thickest part is closest to the fire, but not too near at first to avoid scorching.
Melt a little clean dripping in the dripping pan and baste the meat immediately.
Continue to baste every 15 minutes until 30 minutes before it is done.
Season and finish roasting
Remove the meat from the fire and clean out any grit from the dripping pan.
Remove the paper covering the fat, stir the fire to make it burn fiercely, and baste the meat well.
Sprinkle coarse sea salt over the joint and dredge it with flour.
Return the meat to the fire and roast until done, ensuring the outside is nicely browned.
Do not baste for 15 minutes after flouring.
Serve
A 10-pound sirloin will take about 2.5 hours to roast, longer in cold weather.
Garnish the dish with small heaps of scraped horse-radish and serve with greens and potatoes.
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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Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together529 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
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Radish + potatotop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together37 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-methyl-1-butanol (fusel, malty).
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Flour + radishtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together119 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together786 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,355 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Beef joint
- Forms the main meat that is roasted and carved for the dish.
- Clean dripping
- Fat that bastes the meat, adding moisture and helping the surface brown.
- Flour
- Dusted on the surface to help form a crisp, browned crust.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the outside of the joint and adds flavour to the crust.
The step that matters
Return the meat to the fire and roast until done. Flouring and fierce heat form the crust, but the outside can scorch or the inside can overcook if the timing is off. Basting is paused after flouring so the coating can set and brown rather than wash off.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, flour, horse, radish):
- Mustardfits better
- Shallotfits better
- Beetrootfits better
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against meat, flour, horse, radish. 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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