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Beef a LA Mode

A large beef roast stuffed with suet, breadcrumbs, egg yolks, herbs, and spices, baked with port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and basil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 688 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Beef a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the beef

  1. Remove the bone and excess fat from the beef.

  2. In a bowl, mix the suet, bread crumbs, egg yolks, marjoram, basil, onions, mace, nutmeg, salt, and cayenne.

  3. Stuff the mixture into the cavity where the bone was removed. Stuff the mixture into deep cuts in the meat.

  4. Shape the meat and secure it with kitchen twine.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the beef in a tin bakepan and pour the port wine over the beef.

  2. Cover the beef with a lid.

  3. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 5 to 6 hours, until thoroughly cooked.

  4. If serving hot, skim the fat from the gravy. Stir in the beaten yolks of 2 eggs before serving.

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. Marjoram + basiltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together688 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Marjoram + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Basil + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together400 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

Beef round
Forms the main body of the roast, which becomes tender over the long, slow bake.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing and meat moist during the long cooking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb fat and juices, helping the stuffing hold together and stay moist.
Egg yolks
Bind the stuffing and enrich the gravy, giving it body.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and moisture to the stuffing as they soften.
Port wine
Adds acidity and sweetness to the braising liquid, flavoring the meat and gravy.

The step that matters

Long, low bake with the lid on. Slow cooking at 300°F breaks down the connective tissue in the round so it becomes tender. Cooking too hot or too briefly can leave it tough or undercooked in the center, so the full time matters.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, egg, marjoram, basil, onion, nutmeg):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, egg, marjoram, basil, onion, nutmeg. 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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