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Stewed Sirloin Op Beef

A slow‑cooked stew of sirloin, bacon, herbs, and vegetables in beef broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 Op 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. Sprinkle the meat with salt, mace or nutmeg, and pepper or cayenne.

  5. Roll and bind the meat firmly.

Stew

  1. Place the wrapped sirloin 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 veal or stewing beef with cold water.

  3. Boil the stew for a few minutes.

  4. Skim off the scum from the surface.

  5. Add the herbs, carrots, leeks, or onion with cloves.

  6. After an hour, add mace and peppercorns.

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

  8. Adjust salt before adding vegetables.

Finish and serve

  1. Reduce the cooking liquid to soup or gravy after removing the meat.

  2. Serve with Espagnole sauce piquante or brown caper sauce.

  3. Optionally, brown the outside of 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
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long, gentle stewing.
Striped bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that melts into the meat as it cooks.
Beef broth
Provides the moisture and flavour base in which the joint gently cooks.
Carrots
Contribute gentle sweetness and body to the cooking liquid.
Leeks or onion
Soften during stewing and add aromatic depth to the broth.
Savory herbs
Infuse the stewing liquid with aromatic, herbal notes.

The step that matters

Stew gently for the full 4 to 5 hours. A hard boil toughens muscle fibres and squeezes out moisture, leaving the meat dry and stringy. A slow, gentle simmer breaks down connective tissue so the joint becomes tender.

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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