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Braised Beef

Braised beef rolled with a breadcrumb, butter, parsley, celery, salt, paprika, and onion juice stuffing, baked with bacon, onion, and carrot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Braised Beef

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Braised Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Make the stuffing by mixing bread crumbs, melted butter, parsley, celery, salt, paprika, and onion juice.

  3. Spread the stuffing over the steak, roll it up, and secure with skewers.

Braise and bake

  1. In a baking dish, place the rolled steak, bacon, onion, and carrot cubes.

  2. Pour boiling water over the ingredients.

  3. Cover and bake for 5 to 6 hours.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Flank steak or top round
Forms the main meat that becomes tender during long, moist braising.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that seasons the meat and braising liquid.
Bread crumbs
Soak up butter and juices to form a soft, moist stuffing inside the roll.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the stuffing and helps it brown lightly.
Carrot
Releases natural sweetness into the braising liquid as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cover and bake for 5 to 6 hours. Covering traps steam so the liquid stays hot and moist, while long slow cooking breaks down connective tissue in the meat. Too little liquid or heat that is too high can leave the beef dry or tough.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, carrot, bread, butter, parsley, celery):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, carrot, bread, butter, parsley, celery. 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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