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Beef Steaks Rolled

A rolled beef steak filled with a forcemeat of veal, ham, sweetbread, truffles, and morels, simmered in gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme 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 ↓

Beef Steaks Rolled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rolls

  1. Flatten the beef steaks.

  2. Beat the veal, cold ham, kidney fat, sweetbread, truffles, morels, parsley, egg yolks, nutmeg, thyme, lemon peel, pepper, salt, and cream in a mortar until well mixed.

  3. Spread the forcemeat on the steaks.

  4. Roll the steaks up tightly.

  5. Secure the rolls with a skewer.

Fry and stew

  1. Fry the rolled steaks in a stewpan until nicely browned.

  2. Pour off excess fat.

  3. Add the fried gravy, ketchup, red wine, and mushrooms to the pan.

  4. Let the mixture stew for half an hour.

Serve

  1. Slice the steaks in half.

  2. Place the cut side up.

  3. Pour the sauce over the steaks.

  4. Garnish with lemon.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

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

  4. Veal + truffletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together815 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef steaks
Wrap around the forcemeat and hold its shape while the rolls are browned and stewed.
Veal
Forms the bulk of the forcemeat, giving it a fine, tender, moist texture.
Egg yolks
Bind the forcemeat together and enrich it, helping it hold its shape when cooked.
Cold ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour to the forcemeat filling.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the forcemeat, keeping it soft after cooking.
Fried gravy
Forms the body of the sauce, carrying flavour that the stewed rolls absorb.

The step that matters

Browning the rolled steaks. Frying until nicely browned builds flavour through the Maillard reaction and seals the outside of the rolls. Pouring off the excess fat before adding the sauce keeps the gravy from becoming greasy.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, ham, truffle, parsley, egg, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, ham, truffle, parsley, egg, thyme. 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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