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Stuffed Steak

A steak rolled around a breadcrumb and herb filling, then browned and simmered in a ketchup and gravy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Stuffed Steak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Combine bread crumbs, parsley, herbs, suet, half the salt, and pepper with the beaten egg in a bowl. Mix well.

  2. Place the stuffing at one end of the steak.

  3. Roll the steak up neatly and tie it with string.

Brown and simmer

  1. Melt butter in a stew pan.

  2. Add the steak and fry until nicely browned.

  3. Mix flour with cold water. Add ketchup, the remaining salt, pepper, and a little gravy coloring.

  4. Pour this mixture into the pan. Stir until boiling.

  5. Simmer very slowly for two hours.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Flour + ketchuptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Stewing steak
Forms the outer wrap around the stuffing and becomes tender during the long simmer.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the stuffing body so it holds together when sliced.
Egg
Binds the stuffing ingredients together into a cohesive mixture.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy as it comes to the boil.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich during cooking.
Butter
Adds fat for frying the steak, encouraging browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Simmer very slowly for two hours. A gentle simmer lets the connective tissue in the stewing steak soften slowly without the meat tightening or the liquid boiling away. Vigorous boiling toughens the meat.

Swap the parsley

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, ketchup, butter, beef, egg. 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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