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Roast Beef Steak

A thick slice of roast beef stuffed with forcemeat, seasoned, roasted, and served with brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Roast Beef Steak

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the beef

  1. Flatten the beef slice on a table.

  2. Sprinkle the inside with coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper.

  3. Prepare forcemeat and add minced onion or shallot and spices to it.

  4. Place the forcemeat on one end of the steak.

  5. Roll the steak up tightly.

  6. Secure the roll with skewers and kitchen twine.

  7. Cover the rolled steak with buttered paper.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1.5 hours or longer, depending on size.

  2. Twenty minutes before serving, remove the paper.

  3. Dust the meat with flour.

  4. Baste it well with butter while roasting.

  5. Serve with brown gravy poured over the beef.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  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

Beef rump slice
Forms the main body of the roll and provides the meat that is cooked and served.
Forcemeat
Adds a moist, savoury stuffing that fills the centre of the rolled steak.
Butter
Basting adds fat to the surface, promoting browning and a rich flavour.
Flour
Dusted on the surface, it helps the exterior brown and form a light crust.

The step that matters

Removing the paper twenty minutes before serving. The paper keeps the surface from drying and browning too early during the long roast. Removing it near the end lets the exterior brown and crisp while the interior finishes cooking gently.

“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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