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To Braise the Inside of a Sirloin of Beef

A bacon-wrapped sirloin fillet braised with herbs, onions, carrots, and broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,563 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

To Braise the Inside of a Sirloin of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fillet

  1. Clean the fillet from the joint and remove all skin from the fillet.

  2. Roll bacon strips in thyme, spices, pepper, and salt.

  3. Lard the fillet with the bacon.

  4. Tie the fillet with tape.

Braise

  1. Line a braising pan with bacon slices.

  2. Add a layer of beef or veal, onions, bay leaves, carrots, and sweet herbs.

  3. Place the fillet on top.

  4. Cover the fillet with bacon slices.

  5. Pour beef broth over the fillet.

  6. Simmer gently for 2.5 hours.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Remove the fillet and keep the fillet hot.

  2. Strain the gravy.

  3. Reduce the gravy by boiling until thick enough to glaze.

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. Thyme + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sirloin fillet of beef
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked slowly so it becomes tender.
Unsmoked bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that gently bastes the lean beef as it cooks.
Beef broth or gravy
Provides moisture for braising and the liquid that reduces into a glaze.
Onions
Release sweetness and flavour into the braising liquid as they cook.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 2.5 hours. At a gentle simmer, collagen in the beef slowly converts to gelatin, making the meat tender and moist. A hard boil toughens the muscle fibres and can dry the surface, so keep the liquid barely bubbling.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, thyme, pepper, carrot):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, thyme, pepper, carrot. 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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