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Roast Beef

A large rib or loin roast baked with butter or suet, seasoned, and served with a gravy made from its drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Roast Beef

Why it works: Butter and flour 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

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 the roast

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

  2. Wipe the roast thoroughly with a clean, wet towel.

  3. Place the roast in a dripping pan and baste it well with butter or suet fat.

Roast

  1. Roast in the oven, basting frequently with its own drippings.

  2. When partly done, season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Dredge the roast with sifted flour for a frothy appearance.

  4. Roast for about 2 hours, leaving the inside a little rare.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Remove the roast to a heated dish to keep warm.

  2. Skim the fat from the drippings, add 1 tablespoon of sifted flour, a little pepper, and 1 teacup of boiling water.

  3. Boil once and serve hot in a gravy boat.

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.

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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Beef roast
Provides the main meat, which sets its texture and juiciness as it cooks slowly.
Butter or suet fat
Coats the surface during basting, adding richness and helping the outside brown.
Sifted flour
Dredged on the roast for a frothy look, and thickens the drippings into gravy.

The step that matters

Roast for about 2 hours, leaving the inside a little rare.. Meat keeps cooking after it leaves the oven, and the interior temperature rises as it rests. Pulling it while still a little rare keeps it tender and juicy rather than dry and grey.

“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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