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Stuffed Beefsteak

Stuffed beefsteak is a steak rolled with plain dressing, boiled and browned, finished 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: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Stuffed Beefsteak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pound the steak well and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

  2. Spread the plain dressing on the steak, then roll it up tightly and tie it.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the rolled steak in a skillet with a little water and the butter.

  2. Cover and let it boil slowly for one hour.

  3. After an hour, uncover and brown the steak in the skillet, basting frequently.

  4. When done, sprinkle a little flour into the gravy and pour it over the meat.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Flank or round steak
Forms the main meat that is rolled around the filling and becomes tender during slow cooking.
Plain dressing
Provides the filling inside the rolled steak, adding moisture and flavor as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat for browning the steak and enriching the pan juices used for the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices into gravy when sprinkled in at the end.

The step that matters

Cover and let it boil slowly for one hour. A gentle simmer breaks down the connective tissue in tougher cuts like flank or round steak. Boiling too hard can toughen the meat and dry out the filling, so keep the liquid at a slow, steady bubble.

“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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