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Beef a LA Mode

A beef dish marinated in vinegar and spices, browned, boiled, and served with gravy and garnishes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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 a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wipe and trim the beef, then place it in a deep earthen dish.

  2. Boil vinegar, chopped onion, salt, mustard, pepper, cloves, and allspice for 5 minutes, then pour over the beef.

  3. Let the meat marinate for several hours, turning it often.

  4. Lard the beef with strips of salt pork.

Braise

  1. Brown the beef in hot fat with fried onions and carrot.

  2. Transfer the beef to a Caloric kettle and add enough boiling water to nearly cover it.

  3. Boil for 20 minutes, then add a small bag of mixed herbs.

  4. Cook in the Caloric for 5 to 6 hours using one radiator.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, add more seasoning and thicken the gravy with flour.

  2. Boil for 5 minutes, strain the gravy over the meat, and garnish with potato balls and small onions.

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

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

  3. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main meat that becomes tender during long, slow cooking.
Vinegar
Acidic marinade that helps tenderize the meat's surface before cooking.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savoury flavour as it melts into the lean beef.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, cohesive gravy.

The step that matters

Cook in the Caloric for 5 to 6 hours using one radiator. Long, gentle heat is needed to break down the tough connective tissue in the round cut. Too much heat or too short a time leaves the beef stringy and tough.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, vinegar, mustard, pepper, clove, allspice, pork):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, vinegar, mustard, pepper, clove, allspice, pork. 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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