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Baked Beef

Baked beef with potatoes, served with gravy and optional mashed potatoes or Yorkshire pudding.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Baked Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the beef

  1. Wash the beef and rub it with coarse sea salt.

  2. Place the beef on a trivet in a deep tin or iron pan.

  3. Pour a little water into the bottom of the pan.

  4. Surround the trivet with pared potatoes.

Roast the beef

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until thoroughly done, basting frequently with its own gravy.

  2. Transfer the beef to a hot dish.

  3. Serve the potatoes alongside.

  4. Skim the gravy.

  5. Serve the gravy in a boat.

Make the mashed potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes.

  2. Mash the boiled potatoes with milk.

  3. Place the mashed potatoes in the pan half an hour before the meat is done.

  4. Press down the mashed potatoes.

  5. Score the top of the mashed potatoes.

  6. Let the mashed potatoes brown under the meat.

Make and bake the batter

  1. Stir 4 tablespoons of flour into 1 pint of milk with ¼ teaspoon of salt.

  2. Beat 3 eggs lightly.

  3. Mix the beaten eggs with the milk and flour until smooth.

  4. Pour the batter into the hot pan without lumps.

  5. Bake the batter for about 2 hours if it is 1 inch thick, without turning.

  6. If the batter is thicker, loosen it.

  7. Turn the pudding after it browns on top.

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 + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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
Its fat and juices baste the meat and build the gravy in the pan.
Eggs
Set and bind the batter, giving the pudding its structure as it bakes.
Flour
Thickens the milk batter so it sets into a sturdy pudding.
Milk
Makes the batter liquid and moistens the mashed potatoes.
Potatoes
Starch that mashes into a soft, moist side dish that browns on top.

The step that matters

Mix the batter smooth, then pour it into the hot pan. Dry flour clumps stay unhydrated and leave lumps in the pudding. Pouring into a hot pan makes the batter sizzle and set quickly, which helps it puff and brown.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Leekfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, milk, egg. 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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