Skip to main content
Main

Smothered Beefsteak

A rolled beefsteak coated in bread crumbs and herbs, browned and stewed in its own fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sage and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 237 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Smothered Beefsteak

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Lay the meat out smoothly and wipe it dry.

  2. Prepare a dressing by mixing bread crumbs, salt, pepper, butter, sage, summer savory, and enough milk to form a stiff mixture.

  3. Spread the dressing over the meat.

  4. Roll the meat carefully.

  5. Tie the roll with string, securing the ends well.

Brown and stew

  1. Fry the salt pork in a kettle or saucepan until crispy.

  2. Place the beef roll in the rendered fat.

  3. Brown the beef roll on all sides.

  4. Add water and stew until the meat is tender.

  5. If desired, add chopped onion to the dressing before rolling.

Finish and serve

  1. Once cooked, remove the meat.

  2. Thicken the gravy and pour it over the beef.

  3. Carve the beef into slices.

  4. Stuff the slices.

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. Sage + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together237 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Steak
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender as it stews.
Bread crumbs
Absorb milk and butter to form a stiff dressing that holds its shape inside the roll.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the dressing and helps flavour the meat.
Salt pork
Renders fat for browning the beef and adds savoury flavour to the pan.
Milk
Moistens the bread crumbs so the dressing binds together.

The step that matters

Tie the roll securely. If the string or ends are loose, the dressing can spill out during browning and stewing, leaving the roll dry and uneven.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, pepper, butter, sage, summer savory, milk, pork):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, butter, sage, summer savory, milk, pork. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes