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Beef Bolls

Beef balls are small meatballs made from lean beef, suet, breadcrumbs, herbs, and spices, simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Beef Bolls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef steak into thin pieces about 3 inches square.

  2. Mince the suet and mix it with bread crumbs, parsley, pepper, and salt.

  3. Take a slice of meat, place the mixture on it, and roll it up into the form of a sausage.

  4. Twist some white cotton around it to keep it together.

Cook

  1. Place the rolls in a frying pan to brown them.

  2. Add a little water and simmer them slowly for 1.5 hours, or place them in a casserole and cook for 2 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.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

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

  4. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef steak
Forms the meat wrapper and provides the main savory flavor and texture.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich during long cooking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb fat and moisture from the filling, helping it hold together and stay tender.

The step that matters

Simmer or braise slowly. Low, gentle heat for a long time lets the tough beef break down and become tender. Rapid boiling can toughen the meat and dry out the filling, so keep the liquid at a gentle simmer or in a covered casserole.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, pepper):

  1. Marjoramfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, 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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