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The Inside of a Sirloin of Beef Forced

A stuffed sirloin of beef cooked with gravy, pickles, and a suet-bread crumb mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

The Inside of a Sirloin of Beef Forced

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Remove the skin from the sirloin of beef carefully.

  2. Cut the lean part of the beef into pieces the size of a crown coin.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stew-pan, combine ½ pint of gravy, chopped onion, catsup, pepper, salt, sliced cucumbers, and butter mixed with flour.

  2. Add the meat to the stew-pan.

  3. Shake the stew-pan for five minutes.

  4. Place the mixture back on the sirloin.

Make the stuffing

  1. Mix chopped suet, bread crumbs, lemon zest, thyme, pepper, salt, grated nutmeg, and chopped shallots with red wine.

  2. Stuff the meat cavity with the stuffing mixture.

Assemble and serve

  1. Cover the sirloin with the skin.

  2. Cover the stuffed sirloin with the skin.

  3. Skewer the stuffed sirloin.

  4. Cover the sirloin with paper until serving.

  5. Serve the sirloin.

  6. Garnish the sirloin with lemon.

  7. Garnish the sirloin with pickles.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Onion + cucumbertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  5. Cucumber + lemontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,067 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sirloin of beef
Forms the main body of the dish and supplies the meat that is cut and served.
Suet
Melts into the stuffing, adding richness and moisture to the lean meat.
Bread crumbs
Absorb fat and juices, giving the stuffing body and a soft texture.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the stuffing.
Butter and flour
Flour thickens the gravy sauce while butter adds richness and smooth body.

The step that matters

Stuff the meat cavity with the stuffing mixture. Packing the stuffing firmly but not too tightly lets it hold its shape and cook through while the surrounding beef stays moist. Loose packing can let it fall apart during cooking and skewering.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, pepper, cucumber, butter, flour, bread. 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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