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Beef Rolls

Beef rolls made from round steak strips, bacon, and spices, browned and stewed in butter and water, served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Beef Rolls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pound the steak strips slightly and season with salt, pepper, and cloves.

  2. Lay strips of bacon over the seasoned steak, then roll up and tie with kitchen twine.

Brown and steam

  1. Melt butter in a kettle over medium heat until slightly browned.

  2. Coat the beef rolls in flour and place them in the hot butter.

  3. Cover tightly and cook for 10 minutes, then turn the rolls to brown the other side.

  4. Add enough boiling water to cover the rolls and steam for 1 hour without uncovering.

Serve

  1. Once done, cut off the twine and pour gravy over the rolls.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Clove + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,671 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Round steak
Forms the outer wrap that becomes tender after long moist cooking.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that bastes the beef as it renders during cooking.
Butter
Conducts heat for browning the rolls and adds rich, nutty flavor.
Flour
Coats the rolls to promote browning and thicken the pan juices into gravy.

The step that matters

Covered steaming for 1 hour. Steaming in a tightly covered pot keeps moisture in, so the tough round steak breaks down gradually. Lifting the lid releases steam and heat, slowing the process and drying the surface.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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