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Beef in a Marinade

A stew of sirloin marinated in vinegar, water, and seasonings, then cooked with port wine, mushroom ketchup, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Beef in a Marinade

Ingredients

Directions

Make the marinade

  1. Combine vinegar and water in a bowl.

  2. Add sliced carrots, onions, salt, peppercorns, and garlic.

  3. Simmer until the vegetables release their flavor, then strain and cool.

Marinate and stew

  1. Marinate the sliced sirloin in the mixture for 24 hours.

  2. Stew the marinated meat gently in gravy until tender.

  3. Stir in port wine, mushroom ketchup, shallot vinegar, and butter rolled in flour.

Serve

  1. Serve the meat on a dish and pour the sauce over it.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Garlic + mushroomtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,700 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Carrot + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Sirloin
Is the main protein, becoming tender through the long marinade and gentle stewing.
Vinegar
Acidity in the marinade helps loosen the meat's surface and adds tangy flavor.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavor to the sauce.
Butter rolled in flour
Flour and butter thicken the stewing liquid into a smooth, rich gravy.

The step that matters

Stew the marinated meat gently until tender. High heat or vigorous boiling toughens meat proteins and can make the gravy break or scorch. A gentle simmer lets collagen soften slowly, keeping the meat tender and the sauce smooth.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, carrot, onion, garlic, port wine, mushroom, ketchup):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, carrot, onion, garlic, port wine, mushroom, ketchup. 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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