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Sirloin of Beef

A braised sirloin served with onions, stock, tarragon vinegar, capers, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sirloin of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the beef into slices or leave it whole.

  2. Stew the beef in water with bay leaf, roasted onions, cloves, and allspice until tender.

  3. Drain the beef and set aside.

Fry and stew

  1. Season and dredge the beef, then fry in butter until browned.

  2. Add onions to the pan and fry until golden.

  3. Pour in stock and tarragon vinegar, and let onions stew until nearly tender.

  4. Return the beef to the pan and simmer until warmed through.

Serve

  1. Serve the beef with onions and sauce, or top with a mixture of shallot, parsley, capers, and egg yolk.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tarragon + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together602 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Allspice + tarragontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together127 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Clove + tarragontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together548 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Sirloin of beef
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long stewing in water.
Onions
Add sweetness and flavour as they brown and soften in the butter and stock.
Butter
Fat for frying, which browns the dredged beef and onions.
Stock
Liquid that gently cooks the onions and builds the sauce.
Hard-boiled egg yolk
Adds richness and body to the topping mixture.

The step that matters

Stewing the beef until tender. Beef is tough collagen-rich muscle, and it needs slow, gentle simmering in liquid to break down connective tissue. Stopping early leaves it chewy, while boiling hard can toughen the fibres and make the meat dry.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, clove, allspice, butter, tarragon, vinegar, shallot):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, clove, allspice, butter, tarragon, vinegar, shallot. 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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