Skip to main content
Main

Roast Rump of Beef

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

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. Lard the rump of beef across the grain.

  2. Place the larded beef in a dish with wine, oil, pepper, salt, onions, thyme, and parsley.

  3. Marinate for two days, turning once or twice.

Roast

  1. On the third day, roast the beef at 400°F (200°C).

  2. When half roasted, add a tablespoon of the marinade to the gravy in the pan.

  3. Baste frequently during roasting.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + peppertop 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
Forms the main meat that is cooked and sliced for serving.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aroma to the marinade and pan gravy.
Chablis (white wine)
Adds acidity to the marinade, helping to tenderise the meat.
Oil
Carries flavour in the marinade and helps the surface brown and stay moist.

The step that matters

Basting during roasting. Regular basting keeps the surface moist and carries juices back over the meat, supporting even browning and preventing the outside from drying out before the centre is cooked.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes