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Alamode Beef, or English Turtle.

A slow‑cooked beef stew with onions, bread crumbs, and spices, served in a tureen.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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 ↓

Alamode Beef, or English Turtle.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the beef into 2 to 3‑pound pieces.

  2. Heat the beef drippings in a large deep stewpan until hot.

  3. Flour the meat and add it to the stewpan, turning until light brown.

Make the stew

  1. Cover the meat with boiling water and add a quart more.

  2. Skim the surface when it boils, then add the onion and bread crumbs.

  3. Let it stew very slowly for 3 hours.

  4. Crack the black pepper, allspice, and cloves, and place them in a linen bag with bay leaves and sweet herbs.

  5. Add the bag to the stew and let it cook for an additional hour.

  6. Check if the meat is tender, then remove it and cut into quarter‑pound pieces.

  7. Place the meat in a tureen and pour the soup over it.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Onion + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Long stewing breaks down the tough connective tissue, leaving the meat tender and moist.
Beef drippings
Fat for browning the floured meat, adding rich savoury flavour to the stew.
Onion
Releases sweetness and aromatic flavour into the broth as it stews.
Bread crumbs
Thicken the stewing liquid, giving the soup body and a smooth texture.
Bay leaves
Add a subtle aromatic, herbal fragrance to the broth during long simmering.

The step that matters

Browning the floured meat. Turning the flour-coated meat until light brown builds roasted, savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pale meat tastes flat, and the coating must not scorch or turn bitter.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, allspice, clove):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, allspice, clove. 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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