Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Roast Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wipe the beef clean.
Spread butter, lard, or dripping on a piece of white paper and fasten it over the fat with small skewers.
Roast
Hang the beef before a clear fire and baste constantly with the fat that drips from the meat or with additional lard, dripping, or butter if the meat is very lean.
When almost done, remove the paper and place the meat close to the fire.
Sprinkle coarse sea salt over the meat and dredge it lightly with flour.
Garnish with horseradish.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,847 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,677 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Beef
- The main cut, which is cooked slowly until tender and browned by the open fire.
- Butter, lard, or dripping
- Fat that bastes the meat, adding moisture and helping the surface brown.
- Flour
- Dusted lightly over the meat, it helps form a crisp, browned crust.
The step that matters
Basting constantly while the beef roasts. Fat spooned over the meat keeps its surface moist and helps it brown evenly. A lean cut needs extra fat, because without it the meat can dry out and toughen before the crust forms.
“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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