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Beef a LA Mode

A slow‑cooked beef stew with bacon, spices, onions, garlic, wine, and bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Beef a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Remove the bone from the round of beef.

  2. Stuff the boneless beef with chopped bacon mixed with ground cloves, allspice, mace, nutmeg, pepper, salt, and sweet herbs.

  3. Bind the beef.

Stew

  1. Place the beef in a pot.

  2. Cover the pot with water and white wine.

  3. Add chopped onions, garlic, cayenne pepper, vinegar, a little salt, and mushrooms if using.

  4. Sprinkle grated bread over the top.

  5. Cover the pot tightly.

  6. Stew gently for 6 hours or more.

Finish the gravy and serve

  1. Remove the cooked beef from the pot.

  2. Keep the beef warm over boiling water.

  3. Strain the gravy.

  4. Skim off the fat.

  5. Return the gravy to the pot.

  6. Boil the gravy once.

  7. Adjust seasoning if desired.

  8. Pour the gravy over the beef.

  9. Serve.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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 dish, becoming tender through long, slow stewing.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that bastes the meat from within as it cooks.
Onions
Break down during stewing to sweeten and thicken the gravy.
White wine
Adds acidity that helps tenderize the meat and brightens the gravy.
Grated bread
Thickens the cooking liquid into a richer, more body-filled gravy.
Mushrooms
Add earthy savory flavor and moisture to the gravy.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 6 hours or more. Low, gentle heat breaks down the tough connective tissue in the beef slowly. Boiling hard would toughen the muscle fibers and make the meat dry and stringy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, clove, allspice, nutmeg, pepper, onion, garlic):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, clove, allspice, nutmeg, pepper, onion, garlic. 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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