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Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding

Roast beef served with Yorkshire pudding.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Season the beef roast with salt and pepper.

  3. While the roast is cooking, prepare the Yorkshire pudding batter.

Roast and bake

  1. Place the roast in the oven and cook until desired doneness, about 1.5 to 2 hours.

  2. Pour the batter into a hot pan with drippings from the roast and bake until puffed and golden.

Serve

  1. Serve the roast with Yorkshire pudding.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 roast
Provides the main meat, whose gradual cooking sets its final texture and doneness.
Flour
Forms the structure of the batter, which sets as it bakes and rises.
Eggs
Add structure and help the batter puff as steam expands during baking.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid that turns to steam, helping the batter rise.

The step that matters

Pour the batter into a hot pan with drippings. The pan and drippings must be very hot before the batter goes in. Hot fat starts cooking the batter immediately, creating the steam and crisp base that make it puff and brown.

“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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