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Cold Roast, Warmed

A dish of sliced cold roast meat reheated with gravy, onion, butter, and seasonings.

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. Chop the onion and fry it until brown, then remove it from the pan.

Make the gravy and heat the meat

  1. Add the meat gravy to the pan; if it's not thick enough, stir in 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.

  4. 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
Forms the main body of the dish and is reheated gently in the gravy.
Butter or drippings
Fat for frying the onion and carrying flavor into the gravy.
Onion
Browning in the fat develops sweetness and savory aroma for the gravy.
Meat gravy
Adds moisture and meaty flavor that keeps the sliced meat from drying out.
Flour
Starch thickens the gravy if it is too thin.

The step that matters

Simmer the meat gently. Lean cooked meat dries out and toughens when it is boiled or reheated too hard. A gentle simmer in the gravy only warms it through and keeps the slices tender.

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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