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Roast Beef and Tomato

A simple dish of roast beef or lamb simmered in tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,448 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Roast Beef and Tomato

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare 1 quart of tomato sauce as directed in another recipe.

  2. Slice the roast beef or lamb thinly.

Heat and serve

  1. Bring the tomato sauce to a boil.

  2. Just before serving, add the sliced meat to the boiling sauce.

  3. Cook for just long enough to heat the meat.

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. Tomato + beeftop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sauce + beeftop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,650 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Roast beef or lamb
Provides the main protein; thin slices heat through quickly so the meat stays tender.
Tomato sauce
Supplies moisture and acidity, forming the sauce that coats and flavors the sliced meat.

The step that matters

Cook for just long enough to heat the meat. Sliced meat is already cooked and thin, so prolonged simmering toughens its proteins and dries it out. Adding it at the end and heating briefly keeps it tender.

“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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