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Stuffed Steak

A steak stuffed with breadcrumbs, suet, parsley, ham, and spices, then fried and simmered in gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stuffed Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Mix breadcrumbs, suet, parsley, pepper, salt, and ham in a bowl.

  2. Cut the steak into one thin slice.

  3. Spread the mixture on the steak slice.

  4. Roll the steak up tightly.

  5. Tie the rolled steak securely with string.

Fry and braise

  1. Heat dripping in a stewpan until smoking hot.

  2. Fry the steak all around.

  3. Turn the steak over with a spoon.

  4. Lift the steak out of the pan.

  5. Add a small onion to fry.

  6. Sprinkle flour in the pan.

  7. Mix the flour with the brown bits in the pan.

  8. Add cold water to the pan.

  9. Stir until the water boils.

  10. Return the steak to the pan.

  11. Simmer gently for two hours.

  12. If more water is needed, add hot water.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Place the steak on a hot dish.

  2. Remove the string from the steak.

  3. Add pepper and salt to the gravy.

  4. Let the gravy boil.

  5. Strain the gravy over the steak.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Steak
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender during long gentle simmering.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb juices and give the stuffing a soft, binding body.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich during cooking.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices into a smooth gravy.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma to the gravy as it fries and cooks down.
Chopped boiled ham
Contributes salty, savory flavour to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Fry the steak all around until well browned before adding water. Browning creates deep flavour through the Maillard reaction and caramelised pan residue. Those brown bits later build the gravy, so searing the steak evenly matters.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, flour, ham, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, flour, ham, pepper. 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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