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Stewed Sirloin of Beef

A hearty beef stew with sirloin, bacon, herbs, and vegetables simmered slowly.

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 or ask your butcher to do this.

  3. Lay the meat flat and cover the inside with bacon slices.

  4. Sprinkle with salt, mace or nutmeg, and pepper or cayenne.

  5. Roll and tie the meat securely.

Stew

  1. Place it in a stewpan and add the bones, enough beef broth to nearly cover the joint, and slices of ham or bacon under the beef.

  2. Add cold water.

  3. Bring the stew to a boil and skim off any scum.

  4. Add the herbs, carrots, leeks or onion.

  5. Wait for an hour.

  6. Add mace and peppercorns.

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

  8. Adjust salt before adding vegetables.

Serve

  1. Serve with Espagnole sauce or brown caper sauce.

  2. Reduce the cooking liquid to make gravy.

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

Sirloin of beef
Forms the main body of the joint, becoming tender after long, gentle stewing.
Striped bacon
Adds fat and savory flavour that melts into the meat and stock during stewing.
Veal or stewing beef
Collagen-rich cut that breaks down over long simmering, giving body to the stock.
Carrots
Release sweetness and aroma into the broth as they simmer.
Leeks or onion
Contribute savory aroma and depth to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 4 to 5 hours. At a rolling boil the meat toughens and the broth turns cloudy. A gentle simmer lets collagen slowly convert to gelatin, so the joint becomes tender and the stock silky.

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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