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To Braise the Inside of a Sirloin of Beef

A braised sirloin fillet wrapped in bacon and seasoned with thyme, spices, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,563 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

To Braise the Inside of a Sirloin of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the fillet from the joint and trim off all skin.

  2. Roll bacon strips in thyme, spices, pepper, and salt.

  3. Lard the fillet with the bacon and tie it in shape with tape.

Braise

  1. Line a braising pan with bacon slices.

  2. Add a layer of beef or veal, onions, bay leaves, carrots, and sweet herbs.

  3. Place the fillet on top and cover with bacon slices.

  4. Add meat trimmings around the fillet and pour in beef broth.

  5. Stew gently for 2.5 hours, then keep hot.

Finish the gravy

  1. Strain and reduce the gravy by boiling until thick enough to glaze.

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. Thyme + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sirloin beef fillet
Forms the main meat that becomes tender during slow, gentle stewing.
Unsmoked bacon strips
Wrap the fillet, adding fat and savory flavor as they render during cooking.
Onions
Break down during stewing, adding sweetness and body to the braising liquid and gravy.
Carrots
Release sweetness and aromatic depth into the braising liquid as they cook.
Beef broth or gravy
Provides the liquid that moistens the meat and becomes the base of the gravy.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 2.5 hours. Gentle heat lets connective tissue soften slowly without drying or toughening the meat. Boiling hard would tighten the proteins and make the fillet tough and stringy.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, thyme, pepper, carrot. 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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