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Steak a LA Marquise

A stuffed rump steak rolled with a forcemeat of breadcrumbs, ham, bacon, onion, herbs, and optional oysters or truffles, baked in stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Steak a LA Marquise

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the roll

  1. Flatten the rump steak with a rolling pin.

  2. Make a forcemeat by mixing bread crumbs squeezed from milk with minced ham, bacon, or fat pork, onion, lemon peel, parsley, herbs, mushrooms, oysters, and truffles.

  3. Spread the forcemeat over the steak, roll it up tightly, and bind with twine.

Bake and brown

  1. Place the rolled steak in a deep pie dish, pour boiling water or stock over it, and cover with another pie dish.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for 45 minutes.

  3. Remove the top dish, rub butter over the meat, dust with flour, and brown it before the fire.

Serve

  1. Pour off the gravy, thicken it with a little more water or stock, and serve.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  4. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rump steak
Forms the main body of the dish and carries the flavour of the filling.
Bread crumbs
Soaked in milk and mixed into the forcemeat, they bind the filling and keep it moist.
Milk
Softens the bread crumbs so they blend smoothly into the forcemeat and add moisture.
Minced ham, bacon, or fat pork
Fat renders during baking, adding richness and savoury flavour to the forcemeat and meat.
Butter
Rubbed on the surface, it promotes browning and adds richness to the crust.
Flour
Dusted over the buttered surface, it helps the meat brown into a golden crust.

The step that matters

Browning the meat before the fire. Butter and flour on the surface only brown well when the meat is dry on the outside. Browning is a Maillard reaction that needs high surface heat, so the top must be fully exposed and not covered by the dish.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, ham, onion, parsley, mushroom, oyster):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Plumfits less well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, ham, onion, parsley, mushroom, oyster. 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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