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Victoria Steak

A steak rolled with a forcemeat mixture of flour, thyme, ham, breadcrumbs, butter, and parsley, then fried and simmered.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Victoria Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Mix all dry ingredients except flour in a bowl.

  2. Bind the mixture with the egg and melted butter.

  3. Spread the forcemeat on the steak, roll it up, and tie tightly.

Brown and cook

  1. Fry in hot butter until nicely browned.

  2. Place in hot water in a pan and cook gently for 2 hours.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Mix flour with a little cold water, add some hot gravy, return to the pan, and let it boil.

  2. Season to taste and serve, optionally with mushrooms.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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
Forms the main body of the dish and is cooked slowly until tender in water.
Breadcrumbs
Provide bulk and structure to the forcemeat filling, holding its moisture within the roll.
Egg
Binds the forcemeat so it holds together when spread, rolled and cooked.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, and browns the outside of the rolled steak when fried.
Flour
Thickens the hot gravy, giving it body when it is boiled.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour with cold water before adding hot gravy. Flour mixed directly into hot liquid clumps as its starch grains swell unevenly. Blending it smoothly with cold water first lets the starch disperse, so the gravy thickens evenly without lumps.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, pepper, ham, butter, parsley. 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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