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Rolled Beef That Equals Hare

A rolled sirloin stuffed with fine stuffing, seasoned with allspice, and roasted, served with gravy, currant jelly, and melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Port wine and currant work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 356 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Rolled Beef That Equals Hare

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the inside of the sirloin in port wine and vinegar for 48 hours.

  2. Prepare a very fine stuffing and bind it tightly inside the meat.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the beef on a hanging spit, basting it with port wine, vinegar, and allspice.

  2. Serve with rich gravy, currant jelly, and melted butter.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

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

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

  4. Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Vinegar + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Sirloin, inside cut
Forms the main body of the roast, carrying the stuffing and absorbing the soaking liquid.
Port wine
Soaks into the meat and, while basting, adds sweetness and color to the surface.
Vinegar
Acidity from the soak and basting helps tenderize the meat and brighten its flavor.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice to the basting liquid, flavoring the outer layer of the roast.

The step that matters

Soaking the sirloin for 48 hours. Long soaking in acidic vinegar and port lets the liquid penetrate and begin breaking down muscle fibers. Too short a soak leaves the meat less tender and flavored only at the surface.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (port wine, vinegar, currant, butter):

  1. Allspicethe original
  2. Clovefits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against port wine, vinegar, currant, 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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