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Beef a LA Mode

A beef stew with pork, vegetables, and dumplings simmered in a thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Beef a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

Sear and simmer

  1. Sear the beef in a skillet with the pork, onions, carrot, cloves, peppercorns, and bay leaf for 10 minutes.

  2. Transfer everything to a kettle and cover with boiling water.

  3. Boil for 5 minutes.

  4. Place the kettle in a cooker.

  5. Boil the kettle contents for 15-20 minutes.

Make the gravy

  1. Add salt and pepper.

  2. Remove the meat to a hot platter.

  3. Boil the gravy, skimming off the fat.

  4. Thicken the gravy with flour mixed in water.

  5. Simmer while preparing dumplings.

Make and cook the dumplings

  1. Mix flour, baking powder, melted butter, and enough milk to make a thick batter.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of batter into the boiling gravy and cook for about 5 minutes.

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

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

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Round beef
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during long, slow simmering.
Pork
Adds fat and richness to the gravy as it cooks with the beef.
Onions
Release sweetness and flavour into the gravy during simmering.
Flour
Thickens the gravy when mixed with water, and gives the dumplings their structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the dumplings rise and turn light.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the dumpling batter.

The step that matters

Drop batter into boiling gravy. The gravy must be actively boiling when the batter goes in. Boiling steam helps set the dumplings from the outside while they cook, so they stay light instead of turning heavy or gummy.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, onion, carrot, pepper, flour, butter. 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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