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Roast Rump of Beef

A rump of beef marinated in wine, oil, onions, herbs, and spices, then roasted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Roast Rump of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Marinate

  1. Place the rump of beef in a dish with white wine, oil, pepper, salt, shredded onions, thyme, and parsley.

  2. Marinate for 2 days, turning the beef 3-4 times.

Roast

  1. On the third day, roast the beef.

  2. Halfway through roasting, add 1 tablespoon of the marinade to the gravy in the dripping pan.

  3. Baste the meat frequently.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Rump of beef
Is the main cut that becomes tender and flavorful during marinating and roasting.
White wine
Its mild acidity helps tenderize the surface of the meat during the marinade.
Oil
Carries fat-soluble flavors and helps keep the meat moist while it roasts.
Onions
Release sugars and aromatic compounds that flavor the marinade and the gravy.

The step that matters

Halfway through roasting, add 1 tablespoon of the marinade to the gravy in the dripping pan.. Marinade added to the pan is heated and reduced into the gravy, so it must go in at the right point to build flavor without burning or boiling away the sugars in the onions.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, white wine, pepper, thyme, parsley):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, white wine, pepper, thyme, parsley. 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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