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Stewed Sirloin of Reef

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 Reef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the joint

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

  2. Spread the meat flat and cover the inside with bacon slices. Season with salt, mace or nutmeg, and pepper.

  3. Roll and bind the meat tightly. Place it in a stewpan and add the bones and enough beef broth to nearly cover the joint.

  4. If broth is unavailable, place slices of ham or bacon under the beef and surround it with veal or stewing beef. Add cold water.

Stew

  1. After boiling for a few minutes and skimming off the scum, add the faggot of herbs, carrots, leeks, and the onion with cloves.

  2. An hour later, add the mace and peppercorns. Stew gently for 4 to 5 hours, longer if the joint is large.

Serve

  1. After removing the meat, boil down the cooking liquid to make soup or gravy.

  2. Serve with Espagnole sauce or brown caper sauce. Adjust salt before adding vegetables.

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. Leek + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 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 of beef
Forms the main meat, which is rolled and stewed until tender.
Striped bacon
Lines the inside of the joint, adding fat and savory flavor as it cooks.
Veal or stewing beef
Adds body and rich flavor to the cooking liquid during the long stew.
Leeks
Add mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Stew gently rather than boil. A gentle simmer keeps the meat tender and the broth clear. A hard boil toughens muscle fibers and makes the liquid cloudy.

Swap the mace

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

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

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