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Victoria Steak

A steak rolled with breadcrumb and ham forcemeat, fried and simmered in stock, finished with gravy and ham garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Victoria Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steak

  1. Mix breadcrumbs, chopped ham, mixed herbs, salt, pepper, grated lemon rind, and egg in a bowl.

  2. Place the forcemeat on the steak and roll the steak up.

  3. Secure the roll with string.

Brown and simmer

  1. Heat dripping in a pan until very hot.

  2. Fry the steak briskly until browned.

  3. Remove the steak.

  4. Keep the steak warm while heating the stock.

  5. Once the stock is boiling, add the meat, vegetables, and seasoning.

  6. Simmer for about 2 hours or until the steak is tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the string.

  2. Thicken the gravy with flour.

  3. Pour the gravy over the meat.

  4. Garnish with chopped cooked ham.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Ham + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Steak
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender during the long simmer.
Egg
Binds the breadcrumb forcemeat so it holds together inside the roll.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and give the forcemeat body so it stays in place.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a gravy as it is stirred in.
Dripping
Fat for frying that browns the outside of the steak and adds flavour.

The step that matters

Fry the steak briskly until browned. Searing over high heat browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, building flavour before the long simmer. Fat must be very hot, or the steak steams and turns grey.

“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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