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Roast Meat

A simple roast meat prepared with salt, pepper, butter, flour, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 Meat

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

  1. Wash the meat and dry it thoroughly.

  2. Mix the salt and pepper and rub the mixture into the meat.

  3. Shape the meat neatly and secure it with skewers.

Set up the pan

  1. Place the meat on a spit, trivet, or muffin rings in a pan.

  2. Dot the upper surface with bits of butter and sprinkle with flour.

  3. Add 1 pint of water to the pan for basting.

Roast

  1. Roast in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) or in a Dutch oven.

  2. Baste occasionally and turn the meat if necessary.

  3. If the water evaporates, add more to prevent burning.

  4. Roast for 15 minutes per pound; a 4-5 pound piece will take 1 to 1¼ hours.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 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

Meat
Is the main dish, cooked by dry heat until done throughout.
Butter
Melts over the surface, adding richness and helping the top brown.
Flour
Sprinkled on the surface, it helps the outer layer brown and form a crust.
Salt
Rubbed into the meat, it seasons the surface and the meat beneath it.

The step that matters

Basting and keeping water in the pan. Water in the pan keeps drippings from scorching and adds moisture. If it evaporates and the pan dries, the surface can burn before the interior cooks, so add more water as the record directs.

“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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