Skip to main content
Main

To Roast Sirloin, or Ribs of Beef

A method for roasting beef sirloin or ribs with ginger or pepper, flour, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Ginger and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,564 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Roast Sirloin, or Ribs of Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Hang the joint until it is perfectly sweet.

  2. Remove the marrow pipe from the backbone and cut out the kernels.

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

  4. Dust the meat with powdered ginger or pepper.

  5. Trim the ends of the bones if the joint is not too large.

  6. Lay the trimmed ends in salt for a few days before boiling.

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 the beef with flour when first placed at the fire.

  4. Sprinkle the beef with fine salt when nearly done.

  5. Roast for about 15 minutes per pound, adjusting for fire strength and joint thickness.

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. Ginger + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Beef + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,410 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Beef and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Beef sirloin or ribs
Provides the main meat, whose fat and connective tissue keep the roast moist and flavorful as it cooks.
Flour
Dredged onto the surface, it helps form a crust that promotes browning.
Powdered ginger or pepper
Dusted onto the meat to add aroma and a warm, spicy flavor.

The step that matters

Keep the meat far back from the fire. Gentle, indirect heat cooks the joint through evenly, while intense direct heat would scorch the outside before the centre is done.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour):

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour. 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.

More roast sirloin recipes

of Beef 3 See all 34 →

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes