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Strlotn of Beef Roasted

A roasted sirloin of beef stuffed with suet, bread crumbs, lemon peel, thyme, eschalot, and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,973 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Strlotn of Beef Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the joint

  1. Break the upper part of the chine-bones and cut them out.

  2. Cut through the strong gristle on top about an inch apart and skewer it in place.

  3. Run the spit just under the back at the thin end and bring it out between the joints.

  4. Lift the fat from the inside of the sirloin with a sharp knife and remove the meat close to the bone.

Make and add the stuffing

  1. Mince the removed meat and mix it with chopped suet, grated bread crumbs, lemon peel, thyme, eschalot, and port wine.

  2. Put the mixture back into the sirloin, cover it with the skin and fat, and skewer it down neatly.

Roast and serve

  1. Cover the fat with a sheet of buttered paper and roast gently for 3 to 4 hours.

  2. Cover with paper and roast as directed.

  3. Do not remove the paper until the joint is served, garnished with scraped horseradish.

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. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Thyme + horseradishtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together169 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lemon + horseradishtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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, providing the meat that is roasted and served.
Suet
Adds fat to the stuffing, keeping it moist and rich as it roasts.
Grated bread crumbs
Absorb the meat juices and port, giving the stuffing body and a soft texture.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the stuffing mixture.

The step that matters

Roasting gently under buttered paper. Slow, gentle heat cooks the large joint evenly without drying the outer meat, while the buttered paper shields the fat from over-browning. Keeping the paper on until serving helps the joint retain its juices.

Swap the horseradish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, lemon, thyme, port wine, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, lemon, thyme, port wine, 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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