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To Dress the Inside of a Sirloin of Beef to Taste Like Hare

A stuffed sirloin roast flavored with port wine, vinegar, Jamaica pepper, and powdered cloves, served with rich gravy and currant-jelly sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

To Dress the Inside of a Sirloin of Beef to Taste Like Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the inside of the sirloin in a mixture of port wine and vinegar for 24 hours.

  2. Prepare a good stuffing as for hare and place it in the center of the beef.

  3. Roll the beef up tightly.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the beef on a spit, basting it with a mixture of wine and vinegar, Jamaica pepper, and powdered cloves until it is dried.

  2. Baste with butter.

  3. Serve with rich gravy and currant-jelly 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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Port wine + curranttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together356 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  4. Port wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Port wine + clovetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together914 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
Forms the main cut that is stuffed, rolled and roasted into a large joint.
Port wine
Soaks into the beef during the long rest, adding flavour and aroma to the meat.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the soaking and basting liquid, helping to tenderise the meat.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the surface as the beef finishes roasting.

The step that matters

Roast the beef on a spit until it is dried. Basting with the wine and vinegar mixture while it roasts builds flavour and surface colour, but the roast must be cooked through without drying out. Rolled meat cooks unevenly, so the centre can stay underdone while the outside overcooks.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, port wine, vinegar, pepper, clove, butter, sauce):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Plumfits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, port wine, vinegar, pepper, clove, butter, 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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