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Beef Pot Roast

A pot roast made by browning beef, simmering in water, and thickening the gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef Pot Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim excess fat from the beef.

  2. Fry the trimmed beef in a pot for a few minutes.

  3. Season the beef with salt and pepper.

  4. Sprinkle flour over the beef.

Brown and cook

  1. Add the beef to the pot and brown it on all sides.

  2. Pour in hot water to half cover the beef.

  3. Cover tightly and cook until tender.

  4. Add boiling water at intervals to prevent burning.

Finish and serve

  1. Thicken the gravy.

  2. Pour the gravy around the meat on the platter.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Beef and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 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

Lean beef
Long, covered cooking breaks down connective tissue, turning the tough meat tender.
Flour
Dusted on the browned meat, it thickens the cooking liquid into gravy.
Hot water
Forms the braising liquid that gently cooks the meat and becomes the base of the gravy.

The step that matters

Adding boiling water at intervals. During a long covered cook, liquid evaporates and the browned bits stuck to the pot can scorch. Replenishing with boiling water keeps the liquid level up and the heat gentle, so the meat stays moist and the pot does not burn.

“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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