Name: Beef A-LA-mode
Ingredients: 4 lbs. lard or fat bacon; ½ tablespoon powdered cinnamon; ½ lb. finely powdered pepper; 1 tablespoon powdered cloves; 4 tablespoons chutney, strained; ⅓ cup mixed sauces (such as Harvey, Walnut, Worcestershire, Tapp, tomato)

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Beef A-LA-mode

Ingredients

4 lbs. lard or fat bacon
½ tablespoon powdered cinnamon
½ lb. finely powdered pepper
1 tablespoon powdered cloves
4 tablespoons chutney, strained
⅓ cup mixed sauces (such as Harvey, Walnut, Worcestershire, Tapp, tomato)

Directions

Mix the ground pepper, cinnamon, cloves, chutney, and mixed sauces in a bowl.
Cut the lard or bacon into long, narrow strips that match the thickness of your larding pin.
Soak the strips in the spice mixture for 1-2 hours before larding the beef.
Lard the beef thoroughly and closely.
Cook the beef the next day in plain water with 1 pint of vinegar, a few peppercorns, and bay leaves, or in claret or champagne with vinegar and bay leaves for added flavor.

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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Cinnamon + walnuttop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,147 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Clove + walnuttop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,592 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cinnamon, pepper, clove, sauce, tomato):

Chickpeafits better
Beansfits better
Black-eyed peafits better
Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, pepper, clove, sauce, tomato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.