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Roast Sirloin of Beef, and Yorkshire Pudding

A roast sirloin of beef served with Yorkshire pudding made from flour, eggs, milk, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,759 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Roast Sirloin of Beef, and Yorkshire Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Trim and skewer the sirloin, removing gristle and excess suet.

  2. Roast the beef for 3 hours, basting regularly and keeping it at a good distance from the fire.

  3. Place an oblong tin dish under the beef to catch the drippings.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, crack the eggs one at a time, checking for freshness.

  2. Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl.

  3. Beat the eggs and pour them over the flour, adding half the milk gradually. Mix gently, then add the remaining milk and salt.

  4. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour some drippings into the tin, then add the pudding mixture.

  2. Bake the pudding in the oven until light brown, about 30 minutes.

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. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter as the pudding bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it rise and set as it bakes.
Milk
Thins the batter and adds moisture so it steams and puffs in the hot oven.
Sirloin of beef
Main dish whose drippings flavour and fat the pudding as it bakes.

The step that matters

Pour some drippings into the tin, then add the pudding mixture.. The tin must be very hot with hot fat before the batter goes in. The sudden heat sears the batter's base and produces the rise and crisp edges, so a cold tin gives a flat, dense pudding.

“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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