Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Rolled Steak.—No. I.
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the steak
Take a good steak, not too thick, and beat it flat with the broad side of a hatchet.
Cover the steak with a forcemeat made of bread crumbs, minced pork, and minced onion.
Moisten the forcemeat slightly and season it with salt and pepper.
Roll the steak up tightly, enclosing the stuffing, and bind it with twine.
Bake and serve
Place the rolled steak in a deep dish and pour boiling water over it.
Cover with another dish and bake for 45 minutes in its own steam.
Remove the cover and baste the rolled steak with butter.
Dredge the rolled steak with flour to brown the meat.
Serve the rolled steak on a very hot dish, with the gravy thickened with browned flour.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,214 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together68,474 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Bread + porktop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,371 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
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
- Rump steak
- Forms the outer wrap, and its flesh becomes tender as it cooks in steam.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb moisture and give the forcemeat a soft, binding body.
- Minced pork
- Adds fat to the forcemeat, keeping the stuffing moist and rich as it cooks.
- Browned flour
- Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, deeper flavour.
- Butter
- Adds fat for basting, promoting browning and a rich surface.
The step that matters
Rolling and binding the steak. If the steak is rolled loosely or not tied firmly, the forcemeat can escape and the roll can open during baking. A tight roll keeps the stuffing enclosed and the slices neat.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, pork, pepper, butter, flour):
- Potatofits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Shallotfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pork, pepper, butter, flour. 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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