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Beef a LA Mode

A boiled beef dish with turnip, carrot, corned pork, and bread dressing, seasoned with cloves, marjoram, and thyme.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Beef a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Soak the beef in vinegar or wine overnight.

  2. Parboil the turnip and carrot.

  3. Remove the beef from the vinegar or wine and tie it tightly with cord.

Stuff and season

  1. Cut deep gashes in both sides of the beef and insert pieces of carrot, turnip, chopped onions, and bread dressing into the gashes.

  2. Insert a small piece of corned pork in alternate gashes.

  3. Season with whole cloves, sweet marjoram, and thyme.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil slowly in a porcelain kettle with 1 quart of water and any leftover vegetables for 4 hours, turning the beef occasionally.

  2. Make gravy from the cooking liquid when done.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  5. Clove + marjoramtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Round beef
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender during long, slow cooking.
Vinegar or claret wine
Soaking adds acidity that helps tenderize the surface of the beef before cooking.
Corned pork
Adds salty, savory flavor that penetrates the beef from the gashes as it cooks.
Turnip and carrot
Contribute sweetness and body to the cooking liquid and the finished gravy.
Bread dressing
Fills the gashes with starch and seasoning that absorbs juices and flavors the meat.

The step that matters

Boil slowly, do not rapidly boil. A slow simmer keeps the connective tissue in the beef breaking down gently into gelatin, so the meat turns tender and stays juicy rather than tightening and drying out.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, vinegar, turnip, carrot, pork, marjoram, thyme):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, vinegar, turnip, carrot, pork, marjoram, thyme. 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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