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's done.
Finish roasting
Remove the meat from the fire and clean out any grit from the dripping pan.
Remove the paper covering the fat, adjust the fire to be fierce and clear, 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 returning it to the fire.
Roast for about 2.5 hours, longer in cold weather.
Serve
Garnish with 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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Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,052 recipes
Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
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Beef + horsetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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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).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sirloin of beef
- Is the main cut; its thick mass sets the length of roasting and the final texture.
- Clean dripping
- Bastes the surface with fat, adding richness and helping the outside brown evenly.
- Flour
- Dredged over the joint to help form a crust that browns during roasting.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the surface of the joint and helps draw out moisture for a crisp exterior.
The step that matters
Returning the meat to a fierce fire and not basting for 15 minutes. A hot, clear fire browns the surface through Maillard reactions, which need high heat and a dry surface. Basting immediately after returning the joint would cool the surface and create steam, so the crust would brown less well.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, horse, radish):
- Mustardfits better
- Beetrootfits better
- Turnipfits better
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, 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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