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Cold Roast, Warmed

Sliced roast meat simmered in gravy with onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cold Roast, Warmed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the lean meat from the cold roast into small, thin pieces.

  2. In a frying pan, heat the butter or drippings over medium heat.

  3. Add the chopped onion and fry until brown, then remove the onion.

Make the gravy and heat the meat

  1. Pour in the meat gravy; if it's not thick enough, add a little flour.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then add the sliced meat.

  3. Let the meat simmer for a few minutes until heated through.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Butter and flour 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

Lean meat from cold roast
Provides the main body of the dish, and gently reheating it keeps it tender.
Meat gravy from previous day
Supplies moisture and savory flavor, coating the sliced meat as it heats.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it clings to the meat instead of running thin.
Butter or drippings
Adds fat and rich meaty flavor to the pan for frying the onion.

The step that matters

Simmering the meat gently. Keeping the heat low and the simmer brief warms the slices through without boiling them. Vigorous boiling toughens and dries cooked meat, so it stays tender only when heated gently.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, butter, flour, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, butter, flour, 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.

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