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Stewed Sirloin of Beef

A slow‑cooked stew of sirloin wrapped in bacon with herbs, carrots, leeks, and spices.

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 beef

  1. Cut out the inside or fillet of the beef and reserve it for another dish.

  2. Remove the bones from the beef or have the butcher do it.

  3. Spread the meat flat, cover the inside with thin slices of bacon, and season with salt, mace or nutmeg, and pepper or cayenne.

  4. Roll and bind the meat firmly.

Stew

  1. Place the meat in a stewpan and add the bones and enough beef broth to nearly cover the joint.

  2. If broth is unavailable, place slices of ham or bacon under the beef and add cold water.

  3. After boiling for a few minutes, skim off the scum.

  4. Add the faggot of herbs, carrots, leeks or onion with cloves.

  5. After an hour, add mace and peppercorns.

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

  7. Adjust salt before adding vegetables.

Serve

  1. Serve with Espagnole sauce, sauce piquante, or brown caper sauce.

  2. Boil down the cooking liquid to make soup or 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 joint, which becomes tender and flavourful during long gentle stewing.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that seasons the meat as it renders into the stew.
Beef broth
Provides liquid and savoury depth, forming the base of the stewing liquid and later the gravy.
Veal or stewing beef
Contributes collagen from neck or knuckle, which enriches the liquid with body as it breaks down.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and aroma to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Gentle stewing. Keeping the liquid at a bare simmer lets connective tissue break down slowly, making the meat tender. A hard boil toughens muscle fibres and clouds the broth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, pepper, carrot, leek, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, pepper, 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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