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Stuffed Beefsteak

A beefsteak rolled with egg, breadcrumbs, sage, and butter, boiled and then browned to serve sliced cold.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steak

  1. Pound the round steak well.

  2. Season the steak with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and bits of butter.

  3. Spread a dressing made of 1 egg, bread crumbs, black pepper, sage, and a little cream or butter over the steak.

  4. Roll up the steak tightly and tie it with twine.

Cook and brown

  1. Place the rolled steak in a kettle with 1 quart of boiling water and a lump of butter, if desired.

  2. Boil slowly for 1 hour.

  3. Remove the steak and place it in a dripping pan, adding the boiling water it was cooked in.

  4. Baste frequently until the steak is nicely browned and make gravy from the drippings.

Serve

  1. Serve sliced cold.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + sagetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Round steak
Forms the main body of the dish, which is rolled around the filling and cooked until tender.
Egg
Binds the bread crumb dressing so it holds together inside the rolled steak.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add bulk to the stuffing, giving it a soft texture.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the surface brown during basting.

The step that matters

Roll up the steak tightly and tie it with twine. If the roll is loose, the filling can fall out and the steak can cook unevenly. A firm, tight roll with secure ties keeps the stuffing in place through the long simmer.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, egg, bread, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, egg, bread, cream. 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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