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Beef, Roast Sirloin of

Roast sirloin of beef seasoned with salt and flour, served with gravy from dripping and boiled water, garnished with horseradish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and horseradish match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 743 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Beef, Roast Sirloin of

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Let the meat hang well if the weather permits.

  2. Cut off the ends of the bones and salt them for a few days, then boil.

  3. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Roast

  1. Place the meat in a pan with clean dripping and dredge with flour.

  2. Baste the meat continually while cooking.

  3. Sprinkle salt over the meat just before serving.

  4. Pour the dripping from the pan into a bowl, add boiling water, and strain the gravy over the meat.

  5. Garnish with scraped horseradish and serve with horseradish sauce.

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. Flour + horseradishtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together743 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Horseradish + saucetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together775 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Beef + horseradishtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together491 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  4. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Beef + saucetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,650 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the main body of the dish; its fat and connective tissue keep the roast moist as it cooks.
Flour
Dredged over the meat, it helps form a browned crust and thickens the pan juices into gravy.
Clean dripping
Fat in the pan that conducts heat evenly and promotes browning and rich flavour on the surface.
Horseradish
Adds a sharp, pungent aroma and heat that contrasts with the richness of the beef.

The step that matters

Baste the meat continually while cooking. Basting spreads hot fat over the surface, keeping it from drying out and encouraging even browning. Stopping for long periods lets the exterior dry and darken unevenly.

Swap the horseradish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Horseradishthe original
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Turnipfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, sauce. 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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