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Beef A' LA Mode

A roasted beef stuffed with bread crumbs, onion, spices, and pork fat, served with a walnut catsup gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Beef A' LA Mode

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 the beef

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

  2. Prepare a stuffing by mixing bread crumbs, chopped onion, butter, egg, salt, pepper, cloves, and mace.

  3. Fill the cavity of the beef with the stuffing.

  4. Make incisions in the beef and insert strips of fat pork rolled in spices. Sprinkle remaining spices over the beef and cover it with fat pork.

  5. Tie the beef to keep it in place.

Roast and finish

  1. Place the beef in a roasting pan with 3 quarts of water.

  2. Bake for 5 hours, basting often with a mixture of lard and butter mixed with flour.

  3. When done, skim off the fat and thicken the gravy with walnut catsup and mace.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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

Round of beef
Forms the main meat that is roasted until tender in the pan.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and hold the stuffing together inside the cavity.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds its shape while roasting.
Fat pork
Bastes the lean beef from within and on top, adding moisture and richness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the stuffing and the basting mixture.
Flour
Thickens the basting liquid so it clings to the meat and forms gravy.

The step that matters

Basting the beef over five hours. Long roasting dries lean meat, so regular basting with fat keeps the surface moist and helps it brown. Fat coats the meat and slows moisture loss as the collagen in the round slowly softens.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, onion, butter, egg, pepper, clove):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, onion, butter, egg, pepper, clove. 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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