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Alamode Beef

A stuffed beef roast flavored with pepper, salt, clove, and sugar, baked after simmering with onion and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 125 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Alamode Beef

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the beef

  1. Remove the bone from the beef and trim it.

  2. Wash and dry the meat.

  3. Rub the beef with pepper, salt, ground clove, and sugar. Let it marinate overnight.

Make and stuff

  1. For the stuffing, mix cracker crumbs, chopped onion, marjoram, summer savory, salt, pepper, and ground clove.

  2. Melt the butter and stir it into the crumb mixture until evenly coated.

  3. Add enough hot water to form a stiff dough.

  4. Beat the egg lightly and mix it into the stuffing.

  5. Fill the cavity where the bone was with the stuffing.

  6. Bind the meat with a strip of cotton to hold the stuffing in place.

Simmer

  1. Place a trivet in a soup pot and set the meat on it.

  2. Add enough cold water to half cover the meat.

  3. Add the onion with cloves to the pot and cover tightly.

  4. Bring to a boil and simmer gently for 4 hours, turning the meat every hour.

  5. After 4 hours, remove the meat and place it in a roasting pan.

  6. Pour the gravy around it and dredge the meat with flour.

Bake and make gravy

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until browned, basting with gravy.

  2. Once browned, remove the meat and place the roasting pan on the stove.

  3. Mix browned flour with cold water to thicken the gravy.

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. Marjoram + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together125 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + marjoramtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Clove + summer savorytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main body of the dish, and its juices become the base of the gravy.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb the butter and egg to form a binding stuffing that holds its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the crumb stuffing.
Egg
Binds the stuffing together so it holds its shape when sliced.
Flour
Thickens the gravy and helps the surface brown.

The step that matters

Turning the meat during the simmer. Turning the meat every hour keeps it evenly submerged and cooking, so the stuffed cavity heats through and the meat stays tender rather than drying or cooking unevenly on one side.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, clove, sugar, marjoram, summer savory, butter):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, clove, sugar, marjoram, summer savory, 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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