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Baked Beefsteak

A coated sirloin steak baked with a breadcrumb and ham paste, served with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓

Baked Beefsteak

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 steak

  1. Remove the bone from the sirloin steak.

  2. Flatten the steak with a hatchet.

  3. Brush the upper side with a beaten egg.

  4. Mix breadcrumbs, minced ham, other cold meat, minced onion, grated lemon peel, pepper, salt, a beaten egg, and cream or milk into a paste.

  5. Spread the paste thickly on the steak.

  6. Roll the steak up tightly, binding with soft pack-thread.

Brown and bake

  1. Heat dripping in a frying pan.

  2. Cook the steak for 5 minutes, turning as it browns.

  3. Place the steak in a dripping pan with boiling water.

  4. Cover the pan.

  5. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 40 minutes, basting and turning often.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Remove the strings.

  2. Place the beef on a hot dish.

  3. Thicken the gravy with browned flour.

  4. Boil the gravy.

  5. Pour half over the beef.

  6. Serve the rest in a gravy boat.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Ham + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

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

Sirloin steak
Forms the main body of the dish and carries the stuffing when rolled.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the stuffing into a spreadable paste.
Beaten egg
Binds the stuffing and helps the surface set and brown.
Minced ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour to the stuffing.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, nutty colour and flavour.

The step that matters

Rolling and binding the steak. If the roll is loose, the paste can fall out and the steak cooks unevenly. Tight rolling and firm binding keep the filling inside and help the roll hold its shape during browning and baking.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, ham, meat, onion, pepper, cream, flour):

  1. Avocadofits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, ham, meat, onion, pepper, cream, flour. 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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