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Beef a LA Mode

A slow-cooked beef roast with potatoes, carrots, cabbage, and cream, served with pickles and cake.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,107 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Beef a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the stew

  1. Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat.

  2. Brown the beef roast on all sides.

  3. Add the beef broth and bring to a simmer.

  4. Cover and cook for 2-3 hours until tender.

  5. Add potatoes and carrots, cooking until tender.

Serve

  1. Serve with shredded cabbage dressed in cream and mixed pickles.

  2. Enjoy with cake.

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. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Carrot + cabbagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,505 recipes

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

  3. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Potato + cabbagetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together275 recipes

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

  5. Beef + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,606 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 roast
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender through long, slow simmering.
Potatoes
Add starch that thickens the broth slightly and gives the stew body.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and firmness that holds up well during long cooking.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mild fat to the cabbage served alongside.

The step that matters

Brown the beef roast on all sides. Browning drives the Maillard reaction, creating deeper savory flavour and color in the meat. Pale, unbrowned meat yields a flatter, less complex stew.

Swap the cabbage

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

  1. Onionfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, carrot, cream. 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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