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Stewed Sirloin of Beef

A slow‑cooked beef joint wrapped in bacon, seasoned with herbs and spices, simmered with vegetables and broth.

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 joint

  1. Remove the fillet from the sirloin and reserve it for another dish.

  2. Carefully remove the bones or have the butcher do it.

  3. Spread the meat flat and cover the inside with bacon slices.

  4. Season the meat with salt, mace or nutmeg, and pepper or cayenne.

  5. Roll and bind the meat firmly.

Stew

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

  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.

Finish and serve

  1. Serve with Espagnole sauce or brown caper sauce.

  2. Adjust salt before adding vegetables.

  3. After removing the meat, boil the cooking liquid down to make soup or gravy.

  4. Optionally, flour and brown the beef in butter before adding broth or water.

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
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and moist with long, gentle stewing.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that seeps into the lean meat as it cooks.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the cooking liquid.
Leeks or onion
Build a savoury, aromatic base that flavours the broth.
Bones (in the method)
Release gelatin and body into the stewing liquid, enriching the gravy or soup.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 4 to 5 hours. A gentle simmer lets the connective tissue soften slowly, keeping the meat tender and moist. Vigorous boiling tightens the muscle fibres, toughening the meat and clouding the broth.

Swap the mace

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

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

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