Skip to main content
Main

Beefsteak Stuffed

A beefsteak rolled around seasoned bread stuffing, browned and simmered with water to make a savory stew.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,214 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beefsteak Stuffed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown

  1. Preheat a kettle and fry the pork slices until crisp.

  2. Remove the pork slices.

  3. Roll the seasoned bread stuffing in the steak and secure it with twine.

  4. Place the stuffed steak in the kettle and brown it on all sides.

Simmer and serve

  1. Add the water and a little salt, cover, and simmer for 2 hours.

  2. Check occasionally and add more water if it becomes too dry.

  3. Carefully remove the twine.

  4. Place the beef on a hot dish and thicken the gravy if needed.

  5. Slice the beef through the roll and serve with the gravy.

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 + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Bread + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Bread + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Thick round steak
Forms the outer wrapper and the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long simmering.
Bread stuffing
Fills the rolled steak, adding seasoned bulk and moisture as it cooks inside the beef.
Water
Creates the cooking liquid and gravy base, keeping the beef moist during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Simmering with added water. Two hours of simmering can dry out the meat and stuffing. Checking the kettle and adding water keeps the liquid level up so the beef stays moist and tender.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, pepper, pork):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, pork. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes