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Stuffed Beefsteak

A beef round slice stuffed with bread, pork or butter, sage, and flour, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Stuffed Beefsteak

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Rub the beef slice with salt and pepper.

  2. Mix the stale bread, fat salt pork (or butter), and sage in a bowl.

  3. Roll the filling in the beef slice and sew the edges together.

Bake and make the dressing

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven, basting often.

  2. Make a dressing with the drippings thickened with flour.

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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef round
Forms the wrapped main body of the dish, cooking into a tender, sliceable piece.
Stale bread
Absorbs fat and juices in the stuffing, keeping it moist and light in texture.
Fat salt pork or butter
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing and meat moist and carries flavor during baking.
Flour
Thickens the pan drippings into a smooth dressing.

The step that matters

Basting often during baking. Regular basting spoons hot fat over the surface, keeping the lean beef from drying out and encouraging even browning while the roll cooks through.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Marjoramfits about as well
  2. Sagethe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, bread, pork, 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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