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Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding

A roast beef served with Yorkshire pudding made in the same pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the roast

  1. Wash and rub the rib roast with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  2. Dredge the roast with flour and place it in a baking pan with 1 pint of boiling water.

Roast and add the batter

  1. Put the pan in a very hot oven (400°F / 200°C) and baste often.

  2. Bake for three hours.

  3. One hour before it's done, add peeled potatoes to the pan.

  4. Half an hour later, pour a batter made with 2 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, ¼ teaspoon of salt, ½ pint of milk, and 2 eggs into one end of the pan.

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. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Rib roast
Provides the main cut of meat, which cooks through slowly while its fat renders and browns.
Eggs
Set and bind the batter, giving the Yorkshire pudding its structure as it rises.
Flour
Forms the starch framework of the batter and coats the roast to help it brown.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the pudding rise in the hot oven.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness to the batter, contributing to a tender interior and browned crust.

The step that matters

Pouring the batter into the pan. The batter needs a very hot oven and hot pan fat to puff quickly. Adding it too early or to a cool pan can cause it to spread and rise poorly.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, flour, milk, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, milk, egg. 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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