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Beefsteak Bolls

Beefsteak balls are bread-wrapped beef strips stewed in a savory gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper 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 Bolls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rolls

  1. Cut the beefsteak open lengthwise and slice it into strips 4-5 inches wide.

  2. Rub the inside of each strip with the onion.

  3. Roll up a buttered slice of bread in each strip and secure with two cloves.

  4. Sprinkle the rolls with salt, pepper, and celery seed.

  5. Tie each roll with thread and dredge in flour.

Fry and stew

  1. Fry the rolls in hot butter until golden brown.

  2. Place the rolls in a pot with just enough water to stew them.

  3. Stew the rolls slowly for 2 hours.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Make a thick gravy from the cooking liquid and serve hot with the rolls.

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. Clove + peppertop 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. Clove + celerytop 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. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Beefsteak
Wraps the filling and becomes tender during slow stewing.
Bread
Soaks up juices from the beef, adding softness and body to the filling.
Flour
Coats the rolls so they brown during frying and thicken the gravy.
Butter
Fries the outside of the rolls, adding browning and rich flavor.
Onion
Rubbed on the meat to add aroma and savory flavor.

The step that matters

Stew the rolls slowly for 2 hours. Low, gentle heat for a long time breaks down the tough connective tissue in the steak, so the rolls become tender rather than dry or chewy. Too much heat or too little water can scorch or dry them.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, clove, pepper, celery, flour, 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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