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Meat Roll

A steamed meat roll made with a suet crust and seasoned minced meat, 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: Flour and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 28% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,529 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Meat Roll

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crust

  1. Make a suet crust by mixing flour, suet, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Add tepid water to form a stiff paste.

  3. Roll the paste out on a floured board.

Fill and roll

  1. Cover the crust with a layer of nicely seasoned minced meat.

  2. Roll it up.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for at least 1 hour.

  2. Serve with brown gravy.

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. Flour + meattop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,529 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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the crust its structure.
Suet
Solid fat that keeps the crust tender and rich as it steams.
Baking powder
Releases gas to lift the crust so it rises lightly.
Minced meat
Supplies the savoury filling, and its fat moistens the roll as it cooks.

The step that matters

Steaming for the full time. A dense suet crust only cooks through with sustained, steady steam. Letting the water drop off or stop boiling leaves the centre heavy and underdone, so the pot needs enough water to last the whole hour.

“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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