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 ↓
Rolled Steak, Ready for the Oven
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
Spread butter or grease over the steak like jam on a roly-poly pudding.
Roll up the steak and tie it with kitchen twine to keep its shape.
Butter or grease a piece of paper well, wrap the steak in it, and tie it again.
Place the wrapped steak in a baking dish and add 2-3 tablespoons of dripping.
Roast and finish
Roast in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 1 hour, basting well during cooking.
About 30 minutes before it's done, remove the paper, dredge the steak with flour, and baste it again.
Brown the steak well before serving, and carefully remove all ties before plating.
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.
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Steak
- Is the main protein; rolling and roasting it gently cooks the meat through while the outside browns.
- Butter or grease
- Coats the steak and paper, adding moisture and helping the wrapping release cleanly.
- Dripping
- Adds fat for basting, carrying heat to the surface and encouraging browning and rich flavour.
- Flour
- Dusted on the surface, it helps the exterior brown and form a slightly crisp crust.
The step that matters
Remove the paper and dredge with flour. Flour needs dry, exposed surface and fat to brown properly; dusting it on while the paper is still on would just make a pasty layer. Basting again keeps the surface from drying out as it browns.
“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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