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Stewed Sirloin of Beef

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

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 beef

  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 with salt, mace or nutmeg, and pepper.

  5. Roll and tie the meat firmly.

  6. Optionally, brown the beef in butter before adding broth or water.

Stew

  1. Place it 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 pieces.

  3. Pour in cold water instead of broth.

  4. After boiling for a few minutes and skimming off the scum, add the faggot of herbs, carrots, leeks, or onion with cloves.

  5. An hour later, add mace and peppercorns.

  6. Adjust salt before adding vegetables.

  7. Stew gently for 4 to 5 hours, longer for larger joints.

Serve

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

  2. Serve with Espagnole sauce or brown caper sauce.

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 joint that becomes tender and juicy during long, gentle stewing.
Striped bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor as it renders into the meat while it rolls and cooks.
Veal or stewing beef
Adds collagen that softens into gelatin, enriching the body of the stock.
Leeks or onion
Releases sweetness and aromatic flavor into the cooking liquid during the stew.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 4 to 5 hours. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer breaks down connective tissue slowly, making the meat tender. Vigorous boiling toughens muscle fibres and makes the meat stringy and dry.

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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