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Beef A-LA-mode

A beef roast stuffed with pork and spices, steamed with vegetables, then roasted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Beef A-LA-mode

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Remove the bone from the beef.

  2. Trim away tough bits and gristle.

  3. Bind the beef into a symmetrical shape with a strip of muslin.

Make the pickle

  1. Heat the vinegar in a porcelain saucepan.

  2. Season the vinegar with onions, mustard, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, black pepper, sweet herbs, and brown sugar.

  3. Simmer for 5 minutes.

  4. Bring to a boil.

  5. Pour the hot mixture over the strips of pork in a deep dish.

  6. Let the mixture cool.

Stuff and cook

  1. Mix the remaining liquid with enough bread crumbs to make a stiff forcemeat.

  2. Make incisions in the beef.

  3. Insert the strips of pork.

  4. Fill the cavities with forcemeat.

  5. Fill the hole where the bone was with dressing and bits of pork.

  6. Place the beef in a porcelain kettle with boiling water.

  7. Cover with carrot and turnip slices.

  8. Steam for 4 hours.

  9. Remove from the kettle and place in a baking pan.

  10. Roast for 30 minutes.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 and becomes tender during long, moist cooking.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savoury richness that melts into the meat as it cooks.
Vinegar
Acidity in the pickle helps tenderise the meat and carry the spices.
Bread crumbs
Bind the forcemeat so it holds its shape inside the beef cavities.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar in the pickle.

The step that matters

Steaming for 4 hours. Long, gentle moist heat is what breaks down the tough connective tissue in the round. Boiling too hard or cutting the time short can leave the beef tough and dry.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pork, vinegar, mustard, nutmeg, clove, allspice):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, vinegar, mustard, nutmeg, clove, allspice. 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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