Skip to main content
Main

A LA Mode Beef

A slow‑cooked beef stew with corned pork, spices, onions, and mushroom ketchup gravy.

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

Why it works: Summer savory and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 125 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

A LA Mode Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Select a piece of round beef and carefully remove the meat around the bone, keeping it whole.

  2. Cut strips of uncooked corned pork.

  3. Insert the strips into the beef from top to bottom.

  4. Mix together allspice, cloves, mace, summer savory, marjoram, ginger, and salt.

  5. Make incisions in the beef. Introduce the spice mixture into the meat.

  6. Prepare the beef a day before cooking to allow flavors to develop.

Stew and finish

  1. Lay slices of corned pork in a stewpan. Place the beef on top.

  2. Tie the beef tightly with tape.

  3. Make a bunch of thyme and parsley. Lay the herbs on the beef.

  4. Scatter sliced onions over the beef. Pour cold water over the beef.

  5. Let it simmer slowly for four hours, covered.

  6. Pour off the gravy. Skim off the fat. Strain the gravy.

  7. Add mushroom ketchup and flour. Let it simmer for a few minutes.

  8. Pour the gravy over the beef. Remove the herbs and onions before serving.

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. Summer savory + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together125 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Round beef
Forms the main body of the stew and becomes tender during long, slow simmering.
Corned pork
Adds savory fat and flavor that melts into the beef and gravy as it cooks.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aromatic flavor to the cooking liquid and gravy.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds deep savory, umami flavor to the finished gravy.
Flour
Thickens the strained gravy so it coats the beef.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly and covered for four hours. Tough connective tissue in round beef only breaks down into tender gelatin with long, gentle, moist heat. Boiling hard toughens the meat and can dry out the surface, so keep the liquid at a gentle simmer.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pork, allspice, clove, summer savory, marjoram, ginger):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, allspice, clove, summer savory, marjoram, ginger. 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.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes