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Roast Sirloin of Beef
Trim off a little of the fat from around a two-and-a-half-pound boned piece tender sirloin of beef. Season all around with a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon pepper, then place it in a roasting tin, spread a little fat over, pour two tablespoons water in the pan and set in the oven to roast for forty-five minutes, being careful to turn and baste it once in a while. Remove, dress on a hot dish, skim off the fat from the surface of the gravy, then pour gravy over the beef, decorate with a little watercress and serve.
A plain roast with no oven temperature given, which was normal in 1929 cookbooks that assumed a cook who knew her range. The timing implies a hot oven and a rare finish.
- Oven temperatureNo temperature is given. Forty-five minutes for a 2½ lb boned sirloin implies a hot oven; something in the region of 425-450F will match the timing. At 350F the same piece would need appreciably longer and would not develop the crust the method depends on.
- Cook to temperature, not the clockThe one thing worth adding to the original is a thermometer. Pull the roast at 125-130F in the centre for rare to medium rare; 140F and above turns a lean boned sirloin dry and grey.
- Rest itThe book sends the meat straight to the hot dish. Give it 10-15 minutes loosely covered before carving, or the juices you were told to save as gravy will run out onto the platter.
- What "sirloin" means hereIn the American sense this is the sirloin from behind the short loin, sold boneless as top sirloin or sirloin roast. In British usage sirloin is the equivalent of the American strip loin. Either works; the British cut is fattier and more forgiving.
- The two tablespoons of waterThat is not enough liquid to matter as a braise; it is there only to keep the drippings from scorching in a hot pan. Top it up if the pan runs dry, and scrape the browned fond into the gravy when you skim.
- Basting and turningOptional by modern practice. Basting a lean roast does little for moisture and opens the oven repeatedly; a rack in the tin and one turn at the halfway mark is enough.
- GravySkimming alone gives a thin jus, which is what the recipe intends. If you want body, deglaze the skimmed pan with a little stock or red wine and reduce.
- Yield2½ lb boneless serves four generously, five at a push with the usual accompaniments.
The recipe assumes a cook who already knew the range: no temperature, no thermometer, no resting, only the seasoning and the timing. The watercress garnish is characteristic — a sprig of cress alongside roast beef was a common garnish in Anglo-French service of the period, and it persists on carveries today. Sirloin's prestige in English cooking is old enough to have generated a folk etymology, the story that a king knighted a loin of beef as "Sir Loin"; the name is generally traced instead to Old French surlonge, the cut above the loin.