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Beef, a LA Mode

A stew of rump beef with pork squares, onions, carrots, lemon, bay leaf, wine, vinegar, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Beef, a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Make deep incisions in the rump beef and insert thin squares of pork seasoned with pepper, coarse sea salt, cloves, and nutmeg.

Braise

  1. In a stewpan, combine sliced onions, carrots, lemon, bay leaf, and pieces of pork.

  2. Place the seasoned meat on top and pour in ½ cup of wine, 1 tablespoon of vinegar, and enough water to cover the meat halfway.

  3. Cook until the meat is tender, keeping the dish tightly covered and turning the meat often.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Rump beef
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through slow, covered cooking in liquid.
Pork
Adds fat and savory flavor as it melts into the meat and the cooking liquid.
Wine
Contributes acidity and aromatic flavor to the braising liquid.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that helps tenderize the meat and brighten the sauce.
Onion
Builds savory depth in the braising liquid as it softens and sweetens.

The step that matters

Keeping the dish tightly covered while cooking. A tight cover traps steam so the liquid stays at a gentle simmer and the meat braises slowly. Letting liquid evaporate would concentrate and toughen the sauce and leave the beef dry before it becomes tender.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Cherryfits about as well

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