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Beef Roll with Tomato Sauce

A rolled beef mixture baked with a tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beef Roll with Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the beef roll

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the chopped steak with poultry dressing, pepper, celery salt, and melted butter.

  3. Add the beaten egg and form the mixture into a roll.

  4. Place the roll on a buttered pan and bake for 30 minutes, basting frequently.

Make the tomato sauce

  1. For the sauce, melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in 1 tablespoon of flour until smooth.

  3. Add the sifted tomato and cook for 5 minutes.

  4. Season the sauce with salt, pepper, and onion juice.

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. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Round steak
Provides the main body and meaty texture of the roll.
Beaten egg
Binds the chopped meat so the mixture holds its roll shape.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the meat and gives the sauce its fat base.
Flour
Thickens the butter and tomato mixture into a smooth sauce.
Tomato
Gives the sauce its body, acidity and main flavor.

The step that matters

Basting the roll during baking. Frequent basting adds moisture to the lean chopped meat on the surface, helping it stay juicy rather than drying out over 30 minutes in the oven.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, celery, butter, egg, sauce, flour, tomato. 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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