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A-LA-mode Beef

A slow‑cooked beef roast stuffed with herbs, onions, and vegetables, baked with bacon and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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 ↓

A-LA-mode Beef

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 stuffing

  1. Remove the bone from the beef and beat the meat to tenderize it.

  2. Chop and mix equal amounts of marjoram and basil.

  3. Chop the onions, parsley, marrow, and suet.

  4. Add the grated bread, pepper, salt, and nutmeg to the mixture.

  5. Bind the mixture with the beaten egg yolks and stuff it back into the beef.

  6. Rub the outside of the beef with any leftover stuffing.

  7. Secure the beef with skewers and tie it with tape.

  8. Prepare the beef a day in advance if possible.

Braise

  1. Cover the bottom of a stew pan with bacon slices and place the beef on top.

  2. Cover the beef with more bacon and surround it with onions, carrots, and turnips.

  3. Pour in ½ to 1 pint of water and add the calves' feet if using.

  4. Cover the pan and bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 6 to 8 hours, depending on size.

Serve

  1. Once cooked, remove the beef and place it on a dish with the vegetables.

  2. Remove the bacon and calves' feet, skim the fat from the gravy, and strain it into a saucepan.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Basil + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,351 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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 dish, becoming tender through long slow cooking.
Egg yolks
Bind the stuffing together so it holds its shape when sliced.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and rich during the long cook.
Stale bread rolls
Absorb liquid and give the stuffing body and a soft texture.
Bacon
Lines the pan and releases fat and savoury flavour into the braising liquid.
Onions
Break down during braising, adding sweetness and depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Long, low oven braise. At 300°F the beef must cook slowly for 6 to 8 hours; too much heat toughens the meat and dries the stuffing, while the slow cook breaks down connective tissue into tender, moist meat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, marjoram, basil, parsley, bread, pepper, 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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