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Roast Sirloin of Beef

Roast sirloin of beef seasoned with salt and pepper, baked until rare, served with a gravy made from pan juices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Roast Sirloin of Beef

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 beef

  1. Remove the bone from the beef and trim off ragged edges.

  2. Cut the beef lengthwise.

  3. Roll each piece tightly.

  4. Tie the rolled pieces securely.

Roast and make the gravy

  1. Roast in a savory roasting pan at 400°F (200°C) for about 1.5 hours until blood rare.

  2. Add flour to the juices in the roasting pan.

  3. Brown the mixture on the stove with a little water or stock.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

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 + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Beef and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 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

Top round beef
Forms the main meat; its connective tissue and fat keep the roast moist when cooked gently.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices into a gravy and helps them brown.
Water or stock
Loosens the floury pan juices into a smooth, pourable gravy.

The step that matters

Roasting to blood rare. Beef left in the oven too long past blood rare becomes dry and tough as its proteins tighten and moisture is squeezed out. Pulling it at the right point keeps the slices juicy.

“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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