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A LA Mode Beef

A hearty beef stew cooked with potatoes, mixed vegetables, served with suet pudding, mincemeat, and cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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A LA Mode Beef

Why it works: Beef and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

A LA Mode Beef

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Cook the stew

  1. Brown the beef in a large pot.

  2. Add chopped potatoes and mixed vegetables.

  3. Cover and cook until the beef is tender.

Serve

  1. Prepare the suet pudding according to package instructions.

  2. Serve the beef with the cooked vegetables and suet pudding, alongside mincemeat and cheese.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Beef + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,193 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  3. Potato + cheesetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together959 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main protein; slow cooking in liquid makes it tender.
Potatoes
Add starch that thickens the stew slightly and absorbs savory flavors.
Suet
Adds fat that makes the pudding rich and moist.

The step that matters

Cover and cook until the beef is tender. Beef made of tough connective tissue needs long, moist, low heat so collagen breaks down into gelatin. Cooking too briefly or too hot leaves the meat chewy.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, cheese):

  1. Tomatofits about as well
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Mustardfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, cheese. 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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