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Rolled Steak

A steak rolled with breadcrumbs, herbs, and butter, baked and served with a browned flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Rolled Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the roll

  1. Flatten the rump steak and spread a mixture of bread crumbs, parsley, pepper, salt, and butter beaten to a cream on top.

  2. Roll up the steak and bind it evenly with fine twine.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the rolled steak in a dish with boiling water and cover with another dish.

  2. Bake for 40 minutes, basting frequently.

  3. Remove the cover and let it brown before serving.

  4. Thicken the gravy with brown flour and serve hot.

  5. Cut off the twine before serving.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

Rump steak
Forms the main body of the roll and provides the meat that is cooked and served.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the butter and seasonings, adding body to the stuffing inside the roll.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the stuffing and helping it brown.
Browned flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, butter, flour. 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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