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Beef Alamode

A stuffed beef boiled and browned, flavored with herbs, nutmeg, cloves, egg yolk, wine, and allspice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Beef Alamode

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 the beef

  1. Cut holes in the beef and fill them with part of the stuffing made from sweet herbs, nutmeg, cloves, and egg yolk.

  2. Tie the beef in a cloth and boil it in enough water to cover for 1.5 hours.

  3. Turn the beef over and boil for another 1.5 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the beef and place it in the oven at 400°F (200°C) to brown.

  2. Take the cooking liquid, add wine, allspice, and cloves.

  3. Make balls from the remaining stuffing and boil them in the cooking liquid.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-isoeugenol (clove, spicy).

  5. Beef + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,495 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Round of beef
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender during long simmering.
Egg yolk
Binds the stuffing so it holds together when cooked.
Wine
Adds acidity and flavor to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Turning the beef and boiling it for the full time. Boiling for two equal 1.5-hour periods, turning the beef between them, lets heat reach the whole round evenly so the meat becomes tender throughout rather than only on the bottom.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, nutmeg, clove, egg, wine):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicethe original
  3. Rosemaryfits less well
  4. Cardamomfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, nutmeg, clove, egg, wine. 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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