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Mock Duck

A rolled beef steak stuffed with bread, onion, pepper, salt, and butter, baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mock Duck

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the crumbled bread, chopped onion, pepper, salt, and melted butter.

  3. Spread the dressing over the steak.

Roll and bake

  1. Roll up the steak tightly and secure with kitchen twine or toothpicks.

  2. Place the rolled steak in a baking dish and bake for 1 hour or until cooked through.

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 + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  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 steak
Forms the outer meat that is rolled around the stuffing and cooks through in the oven.
Bread
Absorbs moisture and fat from the butter and onion, giving the stuffing a soft, tender body.
Onion
Adds moisture and savory sweetness as it softens in the stuffing during baking.
Butter
Adds fat that coats the bread crumbs, enriching flavor and keeping the stuffing moist.

The step that matters

Rolling the steak tightly. If the roll is loose, the stuffing can fall out and the steak may cook unevenly. A tight roll, secured well, holds the filling in place and keeps the layers together during baking.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Tomatofits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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