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Beef a LA Mode

A roasted beef stuffed with seasoned breadcrumbs and pork fat, simmered in water and finished with a spiced gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Beef a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the beef

  1. Remove the bone from the round of beef and fill the cavity with seasoned bread crumbs.

  2. Mix together pepper, coarse sea salt, cloves, mace, and nutmeg.

  3. Make incisions in the beef and insert strips of salt fat pork rolled in the spice mixture.

  4. Sprinkle the remaining spice mixture over the beef and cover with more strips of fat pork.

  5. Tie the beef with kitchen twine and skewer it well.

Roast and make the gravy

  1. Place the beef in a roasting pan with 3 quarts of water and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 4 to 6 hours, basting with butter or beef drippings mixed with a little flour.

  2. When nearly done, skim the fat from the gravy and thicken it to serve with the meat.

  3. Season the gravy with Worcestershire sauce, catsup, or wine if desired.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Round of beef
Forms the main body of the roast, providing the meat that is slowly cooked until tender.
Salt fat pork
Strips inserted into the meat that melt during roasting, adding moisture and rich flavor.
Bread crumbs
Fill the cavity where the bone was removed, absorbing juices and helping keep the meat moist.
Butter or beef drippings
Used for basting, adding fat that promotes browning and richer flavor on the surface.
Flour
Mixed into the basting fat and later used to thicken the gravy.

The step that matters

Long, low-moisture roasting in the pan. The beef needs the full 4 to 6 hours to break down its connective tissue and become tender. Basting keeps the surface from drying out, so the meat stays moist as it cooks.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, pepper, clove, nutmeg, pork, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, pepper, clove, nutmeg, pork, 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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