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Stuffed Beefsteak

A round steak stuffed with bread, butter, herbs, and optional onion, baked with salt pork.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stuffed Beefsteak

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

  1. Spread the round steak with chopped bread and butter, seasoned with pepper, salt, sage, and onion if desired.

  2. Roll the steak tightly and tie it.

  3. Place the rolled steak in a baking pan and top with thin slices of salt pork.

Bake

  1. Pour a little water around the steak. Cover it closely.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Sage + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Round steak
Forms the outer wrap that holds the stuffing and cooks into a tender, sliceable roll.
Chopped bread
Soaks up butter and juices to give the stuffing a soft, moist body.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and keeps the stuffing moist as it bakes.
Salt pork
Lays fat over the top that bastes the meat and adds savory flavor.

The step that matters

Covering the pan closely. A tight cover traps steam so the tough round steak braises in moisture instead of drying out. Covering keeps the water and meat juices working on the meat throughout the bake.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, pepper, sage, pork):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, pepper, sage, pork. 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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