Skip to main content
Main

Stuffed Beefsteak

A beefsteak stuffed with plain filling, boiled and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Stuffed Beefsteak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steak

  1. Pound the steak.

  2. Sprinkle with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Spread the plain filling on the meat.

  4. Roll it up.

  5. Tie it closely.

Boil and bake

  1. Place in a pot with 1 quart of boiling water and the butter.

  2. Boil slowly for 1 hour.

  3. Transfer to a pan with the boiling water.

  4. Bake until browned, basting frequently.

  5. Dredge a little flour into the gravy.

  6. Boil.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Flank or round steak
Forms the main body of the dish and, once pounded and rolled, holds the filling.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it is dredged into the boiling liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the cooking liquid, contributing flavor and moisture.

The step that matters

Bake until browned, basting frequently. Browning depends on surface dryness and heat, and the meat dries out if the surface is not kept moist. Frequent basting with the liquid keeps the surface moist while it browns evenly.

“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

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes