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Beefsteak Stuffed

A thick round steak stuffed with seasoned bread and optional onion, browned and simmered in water until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,214 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beefsteak Stuffed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat a kettle and fry the pork slices until crisp, then remove them.

  2. Roll the seasoned bread stuffing in the steak and secure it with twine.

Cook

  1. Place the stuffed steak in the kettle and brown it on all sides.

  2. Add the water and a little salt, cover, and boil slowly for 2 hours.

  3. Check the moisture and add more water if necessary.

Serve

  1. Carefully remove the twine.

  2. Place the beef on a hot dish.

  3. Thicken the gravy if needed.

  4. Slice the beef through the roll.

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

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

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

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

  3. Bread + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

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

  4. Bread + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

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, becoming tender through long, slow, moist cooking.
Bread stuffing
Adds flavour and bulk inside the roll, absorbing juices as the beef cooks.
Pork slices
Contribute fat and savoury flavour to the pan and the cooking liquid.
Water
Provides moisture for slow boiling, keeping the beef from drying out and forming the gravy base.

The step that matters

Boil slowly and check moisture. Boiling too hard or letting the liquid run low can toughen the meat and scorch the bottom of the kettle. Gentle simmering breaks down connective tissue slowly, so the beef becomes tender without drying out.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, 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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