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Pigs in Blankets

Beef rolled in bacon, simmered in water, served with a flour‑thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Pigs in Blankets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rolls

  1. Cut the beef into pieces about 3 by 4 inches.

  2. Sprinkle the beef with salt and pepper.

  3. Cover one side with minced onion and place a piece of bacon on top.

  4. Roll the beef tightly and secure with toothpicks or tie with cord.

Brown and braise

  1. Brown the rolls in a hot frying pan with melted lard or bacon fat.

  2. Pour in boiling water until it covers the meat.

  3. Cover the pan and cook slowly for about 2 hours until the meat is tender.

Finish the gravy

  1. Thicken the gravy with a little flour before serving.

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

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Forms the main body of the rolls and becomes tender during slow cooking.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky savour that flavours the meat as it cooks.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and moisture that softens as it cooks inside the roll.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy.

The step that matters

Browning the rolls. Searing the outside in hot fat builds browned, savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pale rolls taste flatter, and the gravy will lack depth.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, 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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