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 ↓
Mock Duck
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the filling
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Mix the bread crumbs with the salt, pepper, and chopped butter.
Moisten the mixture slightly and spread it over the steak, half an inch thick, avoiding the edges.
Roll and bake
Roll the steak like a jelly cake and tie it in three or four places with string.
Place the rolled steak in the oven and bake for one hour, basting frequently.
Serve
Cut into slices and serve on a platter garnished with sprigs of parsley.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Beefsteak
- Forms the main body of the roll and provides the meaty texture of the dish.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb moisture and hold the seasoned filling in place against the steak.
- Butter
- Melts during baking, adding richness and moisture to the crumbs and meat.
The step that matters
Tying the roll. Tie the roll firmly in several places so the filling stays inside and the roll keeps its shape while it bakes. Loose tying lets the crumb mixture escape and the slices fall apart.
“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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