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Beef a LA Mode

A slow‑cooked beef with salt pork, thyme, cloves, pepper, and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Beef a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Make incisions all through the beef.

  2. Roll strips of raw salt pork in a seasoning of thyme, cloves, pepper, and salt.

  3. Draw the seasoned pork through the holes in the beef.

Braise

  1. Place the beef in a pot with small onions and butter.

  2. Pour enough hot water to cover the beef.

  3. Cook slowly for 3 to 4 hours.

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

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

  2. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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 body of the dish and becomes tender during slow cooking.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that melts into the beef as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the braising liquid and the onions.
Small onions
Release sweetness and flavor into the braising liquid as they cook.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for 3 to 4 hours. Low, slow heat breaks down the tough connective tissue in beef gradually, so the meat becomes tender rather than dry or stringy.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pork, thyme, pepper, onion, butter):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, thyme, pepper, onion, butter. 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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