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Roast Beef, Mrs. C. Belford

Roast beef seasoned with flour, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and ketchup, baked until desired doneness.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Roast Beef, Mrs. C. Belford

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Dredge the beef roast lightly with flour and season with salt and pepper.

Roast

  1. Place the roast in the oven and baste frequently while roasting.

  2. Roast for 15 minutes per pound for rare, longer for well done.

Serve

  1. Serve with a sauce made from the drippings, adding Worcestershire sauce and tomato ketchup.

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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef roast
Forms the main body of the dish and sets the texture and doneness of the meat as it cooks.
Flour
Dusting on the roast helps the surface brown and gives the drippings body for the sauce.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savory, tangy depth to the drippings sauce.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the drippings sauce.

The step that matters

Roast for 15 minutes per pound. Time alone sets doneness, and internal temperature is more reliable. Meat keeps cooking after leaving the oven, so pulling it a little early helps avoid overcooking. Basting keeps the surface moist while it browns.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, pepper, sauce, ketchup):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, pepper, sauce, ketchup. 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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