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To Roast Sirloin, or Ribs of Beef

A method for roasting a sirloin or rib of beef with ginger, pepper, or flour and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,410 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Roast Sirloin, or Ribs of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Let the beef hang until it is perfectly sweet.

  2. Remove the marrow from the backbone and cut out the fat.

  3. In warm weather, guard the meat from flies and wipe off any moisture.

  4. Dust the beef with powdered ginger, pepper, or flour.

  5. Trim the ends of the bones if the joint is not too large; salt and boil them later.

Roast

  1. Spit the beef firmly and keep it far back from the fire until heated through.

  2. Baste the beef constantly while roasting.

  3. Dredge with flour when first placed at the fire and sprinkle with fine salt near the end of cooking.

  4. Roast until the steam from the meat draws towards the fire, indicating it is nearly ready.

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. Beef + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,410 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 or rib of beef
Provides the main meat, whose fat and marbling keep the roast moist and flavorful as it cooks.
Flour
Forms a dusting layer on the surface that helps the outside brown and seal in juices.
Powdered ginger
Adds a warm, aromatic flavor to the outer surface of the beef.

The step that matters

Keep the beef far back from the fire. Spitting the joint and holding it back from direct heat lets the interior warm through gradually, so the outside does not scorch before the centre is cooked.

“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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