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To Dress the Inside of a Cold Sirloin of Beef

A cold sirloin of beef is cut, dredged, fried, and tossed in a pepper, salt, anchovy, shallot gravy, finished with vinegar and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

To Dress the Inside of a Cold Sirloin of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and fry

  1. Cut the meat and a little fat into pieces as thick as your finger and two inches long.

  2. Dredge the pieces with flour and fry in butter until nicely browned.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Drain the butter from the meat and toss it in a rich gravy seasoned with pepper, salt, anchovy, and shallot.

  2. Do not let it boil.

  3. Before serving, add 2 tablespoons of vinegar.

  4. Garnish with crisped parsley.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold sirloin of beef
Provides the main meat, which is cut into pieces and browned to form the dish.
Flour
Dredging coats the meat so it browns well and thickens the gravy.
Butter
Fat for frying that browns the flour-coated meat and adds rich flavour.
Anchovy
Adds a deep savoury, salty flavour to the gravy.
Shallot
Adds a mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the gravy.
Vinegar
Added just before serving to bring acidity that brightens the rich gravy.

The step that matters

Do not let it boil. Once the gravy reaches a boil it can turn tough and greasy, and the meat's texture suffers. Keeping it below a boil preserves a smooth, tender result and stops the sauce from breaking.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, butter, pepper, anchovy, vinegar, parsley):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits less well
  4. Potatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, butter, pepper, anchovy, vinegar, parsley. 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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