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Rolled Steak

A rolled rump steak coated with breadcrumbs and herbs, baked in boiling water and served with a browned flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rolled Steak

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the steak

  1. Flatten the rump steak and spread a mixture of bread crumbs, parsley, pepper, salt, and softened butter on top.

  2. Roll up the steak tightly and bind it with fine twine.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the rolled steak in a dish with boiling water and cover with another dish.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 40 minutes, basting frequently.

  3. Remove the cover and allow it to brown before serving.

  4. Thicken the gravy with browned flour.

  5. Remove the twine before serving.

  6. Serve hot.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

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

Rump steak
Forms the main body of the dish and is the meat that is rolled, browned and served.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices from the filling and add a soft, savoury stuffing texture.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the filling and helps the surface brown.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.

The step that matters

Basting and browning the cover-free steak. Basting keeps the surface moist while the steak cooks, and removing the cover lets dry heat brown the outside. Without that browning step the steak looks pale and tastes flat.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

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

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