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Beef Alamodb

A preserved beef dish larded with bacon and vinegar, rolled with seasoning, cooked partially, then aged for twelve hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Beef Alamodb

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Lard the beef with slices of fat bacon dipped in vinegar.

  2. Roll it up with the chopped seasoning.

  3. Bind it tightly and place it in a saucepan.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook until half done, then let it stand for twelve hours.

  2. Serve hot or cold.

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. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the main body of the dish, which softens as it cooks and rests.
Fat bacon
Melts into the meat as it cooks, adding moisture and rich flavour.
Vinegar
Acid that softens the surface of the meat and adds a sharp tang.
Chopped seasoning
Aromatic herbs, spices and onions that scent the meat from the rolled filling.

The step that matters

Cook until half done. Meat keeps cooking from its own residual heat during the long rest, so stopping at half done prevents it from overcooking and drying out while it stands.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, vinegar, clove, sage, parsley, thyme, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, vinegar, clove, sage, parsley, thyme, pepper. 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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