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Stewed Sirloin of Beef

A stew of sirloin beef with bacon, herbs, and vegetables, simmered slowly in broth or water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,310 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Stewed Sirloin of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the joint

  1. Remove the fillet from the sirloin and reserve it for another dish.

  2. Carefully remove the bones.

  3. Spread the meat flat.

  4. Cover the inside with bacon slices.

  5. Season with salt, mace or nutmeg, and pepper or cayenne.

  6. Roll the meat and bind it firmly.

Stew

  1. Place the meat in a stewpan.

  2. Add the bones and enough beef broth to nearly cover the joint.

  3. If broth is unavailable, place slices of ham or bacon under the beef and add cold water.

  4. Boil for a few minutes and skim off the scum.

  5. Add the faggot of herbs, carrots, leeks or onion with cloves.

  6. After an hour, add mace and peppercorns.

  7. Stew gently for 4 to 5 hours, longer if the joint is large.

  8. Adjust salt before adding vegetables.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the meat.

  2. Boil down the cooking liquid to make soup or gravy.

  3. Serve with Espagnole sauce or brown caper sauce.

  4. Optionally, flour and brown the beef in butter before adding broth or water.

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. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

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

  4. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 recipes

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

  5. Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef sirloin
Forms the main meat of the dish, becoming tender through long gentle stewing.
Striped bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that seasons the meat from inside as it cooks.
Veal or stewing beef
Adds connective tissue that softens into rich body in the cooking liquid.
Carrots
Contribute sweetness and aroma to the stewing liquid.
Leeks or onion
Build savory aroma and depth in the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 4 to 5 hours. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil lets connective tissue break down slowly, so the meat turns tender without tightening and toughening.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, veal, carrot, leek, butter. 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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