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Sirloin of Beef, Roasted

A roasted sirloin of beef served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Sirloin of Beef, Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Order the butcher to remove the bones.

  2. Roll the beef into a round shape and secure it with skewers and tape.

Roast before the fire

  1. Place the beef 18 inches from a large fire until partly cooked.

  2. Gradually move it closer to the fire.

  3. Put the beef in a pan and baste it as soon as the dripping melts.

  4. Baste it every hour.

  5. Twenty minutes before removing it from the fire, dredge the beef with flour.

  6. Baste with a little butter.

Serve

  1. Remove the skewers and tape, securing the beef with a silver skewer instead.

  2. Serve with good gravy over the beef.

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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

2 ribs of beef
Provides the main meat, whose fat and connective tissue add flavour and juiciness as it roasts.
Clarified dripping
Fat that bastes the beef, conducting heat and encouraging even browning on the surface.
Flour
Dusted onto the surface, it helps form a browned crust and thickens the drippings.
Butter
Adds richness and aids browning during the final basting.

The step that matters

Gradually move the beef closer to the fire. Starting far from the fire lets the meat cook through gently before the surface is exposed to strong heat. Moving it in stages avoids a charred exterior around a raw centre, and helps the fat render evenly.

“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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