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Beef, Roast

A large roast beef cooked slowly in the oven, seasoned with salt and flour, and garnished with horse-radish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Beef, Roast

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. Wrap the meat in paper to retain moisture while cooking.

Roast and baste

  1. Roast for 3.5 to 4 hours, allowing 15 minutes for each additional pound.

  2. Baste the meat every 15 minutes until the last half hour.

  3. Remove the paper, sprinkle with salt and flour to brown.

Serve

  1. Garnish with finely scraped horse-radish before serving.

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. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  2. Beef + horsetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Flour + radishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together119 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + horsetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Beef + radishtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together97 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Sirloin or ribs of beef
Provides the main meat; its fat and connective tissue keep the roast moist and flavorful as it cooks.
Flour
Dusted on the surface, it helps the outside brown during roasting.
Coarse sea salt
Sprinkled on the surface, it seasons the outside and supports browning.

The step that matters

Removing the paper before browning. The paper holds in moisture early on, but the surface must be exposed to dry heat for salt and flour to brown. Leaving the paper on too long would prevent browning and leave the crust pale.

Swap the radish

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

  1. Radishthe original
  2. Mustardfits about as well
  3. Beetrootfits less well
  4. Turnipfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, horse. 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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