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Stuffed Beefsteak

A beefsteak stuffed with bread crumbs, butter, pepper, and salt, then slow boiled and browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Stuffed Beefsteak

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the steak

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Place the steak on a rack in a dripping pan.

  3. Add small pieces of fat to the pan.

  4. Let the steak cook until a skin forms.

  5. Turn the steak over.

  6. Let the steak cook until a skin forms again.

Stuff and roll

  1. In a bowl, mix bread crumbs, butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Spread the mixture on the top of the steak.

  3. Roll the steak tightly.

  4. Tie the rolled steak with twine.

Boil and brown

  1. In a kettle, bring 1 quart of water to a boil.

  2. Boil the steak slowly for one hour.

  3. Remove the steak.

  4. Place the steak in the dripping pan.

  5. Add the boiling water to the pan.

  6. Baste the steak until it is nicely browned.

  7. Make gravy from the drippings.

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

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

  2. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Tender steak
Forms the main body of the dish and carries the stuffing through the cooking.
Small pieces of fat
Add fat to the pan, helping the steak brown and keeping its surface from drying.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the butter and juices, giving the stuffing body and a soft texture.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the stuffing and helps the surface brown.

The step that matters

Boil the steak slowly for one hour. Slow simmering in water cooks the meat gently and evenly. Too hard a boil can toughen the meat and loosen the rolled stuffing, so keep the water at a gentle boil.

“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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