Skip to main content
Main

Roly Poly

A baked meat roll made with veal, beef, pork, bread, onion, eggs, and spices, basted in beef stock.

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

Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Roly Poly

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Soak the chopped bread in water and squeeze out the excess.

  2. In a bowl, combine the veal, lean beef, pork, soaked bread, chopped onion, spices, and beaten eggs.

Shape and bake

  1. Form the mixture into a roll.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1½ hours, basting frequently with beef stock.

Cool and serve

  1. Allow to cool, then slice and serve.

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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  4. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the meat and bread so the roll holds its shape when sliced.
Bread
Adds moisture and softness, keeping the meat mixture tender as it bakes.
Veal
Provides a mild, delicate meat base with a tender texture.
Lean beef
Gives the roll its main meaty flavor and structure.
Pork
Adds fat and richness, helping keep the filling juicy.

The step that matters

Basting with beef stock during baking. Frequent basting adds moisture to the surface while the roll cooks, so the outside does not dry out before the centre is fully set.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, beef, pork, bread, egg. 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.

More roly poly recipes

Pudding 3 See all 12 →

You might also like

Beef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes