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Beef a LA Mode

A slow‑cooked beef stew flavored with bacon, pork, onions, carrots, cloves, herbs, and a rich gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Beef a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Bone the round of beef and lard it with fat bacon.

  2. Make several incisions and fill them with a savory dressing of bread crumbs and chopped pork, then skewer it together and tie it with twine.

Brown and stew

  1. In a pot, fry pieces of pork until crisp, then remove them.

  2. Add the beef to the pot and brown it on all sides.

  3. Add just enough water to cover the beef, along with the chopped onion, sliced carrot, cloves, sweet herbs, pepper, and salt.

  4. Cover the pot and let it stew gently for several hours until very tender.

Make the gravy

  1. Ensure the water boils down to create a rich gravy, being careful not to let it burn.

  2. Strain and thicken the gravy with browned flour if desired.

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 + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Beef round
Forms the main meat that becomes tender through long, gentle stewing.
Fat bacon
Larding adds fat that keeps the lean beef moist during long cooking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices in the savory stuffing, keeping the filling moist and binding it.
Chopped pork
Adds savory richness and fat to the stuffing and the frying pan base.
Browned flour
Thickens the strained cooking liquid into a body-rich gravy and adds toasty flavor.

The step that matters

Keep the stew at a gentle simmer. Strong boiling toughens the meat's proteins and can reduce the liquid too fast, scorching the gravy. Slow, gentle heat dissolves connective tissue into tender meat.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, pork, onion, carrot, pepper, flour):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, pork, onion, carrot, pepper, 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.

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