Skip to main content
Main

Beefsteak Rolls

Beefsteak rolls are bread-wrapped steak rolls simmered in seasoned broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Beefsteak Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rolls

  1. Remove all gristle from the steak.

  2. Lay the steak flat on a table.

  3. Sprinkle the steak with a light seasoning of salt, pepper, and chopped celery or celery salt.

  4. Butter the slices of bread.

  5. Lay the buttered bread slices on the steak.

  6. Sprinkle a little powdered cloves over the bread.

  7. Roll up the steak and bread together.

  8. Fasten the roll with string.

  9. Cover the rolls with seasoned flour.

Brown and stew

  1. Place the rolls in a saucepan with enough hot water to prevent burning.

  2. Brown the rolls.

  3. Cover the rolls with hot water.

  4. Add a light seasoning of salt and pepper.

  5. Stew gently until the meat is tender.

  6. Remove the strings.

  7. Serve the rolls on a dish with gravy poured over them.

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 + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Round steak
Forms the outer wrap, and stewing gently over time makes the meat tender.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the bread brown and carry flavour.
Soft bread
Fills the roll and soaks up juices and seasoning as it stews.
Flour
Coats the outside so the rolls brown and the gravy thickens.

The step that matters

Stew gently until the meat is tender. Lean round steak toughens if boiled hard. A gentle simmer over a long time breaks down connective tissue, so the meat softens without drying out.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

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

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes