Skip to main content
Main

Bef A-LA-mode

A roast beef stuffed with forced meat, seasoned with mustard, herbs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mustard and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 859 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Bef A-LA-mode

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Remove the bone from the beef, trim off tougher bits along the edges, and set aside for soup stock.

  2. Trim the round of any gristle and shape it into a symmetrical form by passing a strip of stout muslin around it and stitching the ends together at one side.

  3. Cut at least a pound of fat salt pork into strips long enough to reach from top to bottom of the trussed round.

Make the spiced forced meat

  1. Simmer onions, two teaspoonfuls mustard, a teaspoonful nutmeg, one clove, half as much allspice, half a spoonful black pepper, minced sweet herbs, and a tablespoonful brown sugar for five minutes; then boil once and pour while hot over the pork strips laid in a deep dish; let stand until cold.

  2. Remove the pork to a plate, mix with the liquor left in the dish, add enough bread crumbs to make a stiff forced meat; if vinegar is strong, dilute with a little water before moistening the crumbs.

Lard and roast

  1. Make perpendicular incisions in the beef, not more than half an inch apart, and thrust the pork strips into them so the upper ends are level with the surface; work a little forced meat into the cavities until the meat is riddled and plugged with pork.

  2. Fill the hole from which the bone was taken with the dressing and bits of pork, and rub the upper side of the beef with the spiced forced meat.

  3. Place the beef in a baking pan with a little water to prevent burning, cover, and roast slowly for five to six hours, allowing half an hour per pound of meat.

  4. If the beef is tough, stew the round by putting it in a pot with enough water to cover it, cover tightly, and stew very slowly for six hours; then set in the oven with the gravy.

  5. Keep the cover on until fifteen minutes before removing the beef from the oven; then remove the muslin band, pour the gravy over the meat.

Serve and store

  1. When the meat is cold, lift it from the gravy, cut the stitches in the muslin girdle, remove carefully, and serve cold garnished with parsley and nasturtium blossoms; carve horizontally into thin slices.

  2. Store in winter for a week or more, and in summer in the refrigerator, except when served.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

545Calories
55 gProtein
29 gFat
12 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Beef100g cooked250
Pork100g cooked242
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Mustard1 tsp (5g) yellow3
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Animalnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

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. See the original page.

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. Mustard + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,431 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the main body of the dish, which becomes tender through long, slow cooking.
Salt pork fat
Strips threaded through the beef add moisture and richness as they melt during roasting.
Bread crumbs (in the method)
Absorb the spiced liquid and bind the forced meat into a stiff, spreadable stuffing.
Onions
Simmered in the spiced liquid, they add savory sweetness and aroma to the pickle.
Vinegar (in the method)
Adds acidity to the pickling liquid, sharpening flavor and helping the meat taste bright.

The step that matters

Roast or stew slowly and keep the cover on. Low, slow heat with moisture breaks down the connective tissue in the round, making it tender. Rushing with high heat or letting it dry out leaves the meat tough and dry.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, pork, beef, sauce, onion, pepper):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, pork, beef, sauce, onion, pepper. 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.

More beef à la mode recipes

French 3 See all 169 →

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes