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Larded Beef

A beef roast larded with bacon, marinated in vinegar, onions, parsley, salt, and pepper, then roasted and served with Spanish sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Larded Beef

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Lard the beef with bacon.

  2. Place the beef in a pan and cover it with vinegar.

  3. Add the sliced onion, chopped parsley, salt, and pepper.

  4. Let it marinate in the vinegar mixture for 12 hours.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the beef in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 1.5 hours.

  2. Once done, glaze the beef.

  3. Serve with Spanish sauce poured around the beef and extra sauce in a tureen.

  4. Garnish with boiled and glazed Spanish onions 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Bacon
Lard strips add fat and moisture inside the lean beef as it roasts.
Vinegar
Acidity in the marinade tenderises the beef and adds a sharp, tangy flavour.
Onion
Sliced onion in the marinade adds aromatic sweetness and flavour to the beef.

The step that matters

Let it marinate in the vinegar mixture for 12 hours. The acid in the vinegar slowly breaks down muscle fibres, so the full 12 hours helps the beef become tender and well flavoured. Cutting the time short leaves the meat firmer and less seasoned.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, pepper, vinegar, meat, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, pepper, vinegar, meat, sauce. 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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