Skip to main content
Main

Beef a LA Mode

A slow‑cooked beef stew with bacon, calves‑foot, wine, brandy, and aromatic herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Prepare the beef

  1. Beat the beef well to make it tender.

  2. Rub the beef all over with salt and pepper.

  3. Lard the beef on both sides with slips of bacon.

Stew

  1. Place the beef in a deep pan with bacon, calves‑foot, onions, carrot, sweet herbs, bay leaves, cloves, and nutmeg.

  2. Pour in the red wine, white wine, and brandy.

  3. Let it stew slowly for at least six hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the beef.

  2. Strain the gravy.

  3. Pour the gravy over the meat.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Red wine + white winetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together97 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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; long slow stewing turns its connective tissue tender.
Calves-foot
Adds gelatin, which thickens the gravy and gives it a silky body as it stews.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that slowly melts into the meat and gravy.
Red wine
Adds acidity and deep color, and helps tenderize the meat during the long stew.
White wine
Adds acidity and lightness to the braising liquid, balancing the richer flavors.
Onions
Break down during stewing, adding sweetness and body to the gravy.

The step that matters

Stewing slowly for at least six hours. Low, slow heat is needed to convert the beef's connective tissue into gelatin. Rushing with higher heat leaves the meat tough and stringy, and the gravy thin.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, carrot, clove, nutmeg, red wine, white wine):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, carrot, clove, nutmeg, red wine, white wine. 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.

More beef à la mode recipes

French 3 See all 169 →

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes