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Stuffed Steak

A steak rolled around sausages and vegetables, simmered in butter, water, and ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Stuffed Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the roll

  1. Dust the steak with flour on both sides.

  2. Lay the sausages on the steak and roll it up tightly.

  3. Tie the roll together with kitchen twine.

Brown and stew

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan and add the roll.

  2. Brown the roll well on all sides.

  3. Pour in the boiling water and add the ketchup.

  4. Add the sliced carrot, turnip pieces, and chopped onion.

  5. Season with salt and pepper, then stew slowly for 2 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with the vegetables arranged around the steak and gravy poured over.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Rump steak
Forms the outer wrap and becomes tender during slow stewing.
Sausages
Fill the roll with rich, savoury flavour and fat that bastes the meat as it cooks.
Flour
Dusting on the steak helps it brown and thickens the cooking liquid into gravy.
Butter
Fat for browning the roll, adding richness and roasted flavour to the gravy.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens in the stewing liquid.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the gravy.

The step that matters

Brown the roll well on all sides. Browning creates Maillard flavour and colour in the meat and flour coating. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the gravy pale and flat-tasting.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, pepper, flour, butter, ketchup):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, pepper, flour, butter, ketchup. 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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