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A LA Mode Beef

A larded beef cooked slowly with vinegar, vegetables, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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A LA Mode Beef

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 ↓

A LA Mode Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork

  1. Scrape the pork and remove the rind.

  2. Cut the pork into strips about ½ inch thick and 4 inches long.

Lard the beef

  1. Insert a larding needle half its length into the meat, load it with a strip of pork, and pass the needle through, leaving the pork in the meat. Repeat until the meat is larded as desired.

  2. If the meat is too thick, lard one side first, then the other. Lard the beef with the grain.

  3. If you don't have a larding needle, make incisions in the meat with a narrow knife and press the strips of pork into the incisions.

Braise

  1. Use a pot large enough to hold the meat without bending it. It can be an earthen vessel.

  2. Finely chop the vegetables and place them in the pot with a pint of stock or gravy.

  3. Spread the seasoning, chopped vegetables, rind, and any leftover pork strips over the bottom of the pot.

  4. Place the larded beef on top, pour the vinegar over it, and add enough cold water to just cover the meat.

  5. Cover and simmer slowly for 5 to 6 hours, turning the meat occasionally.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 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
Is the main cut that is larded and slowly braised until tender.
Fat salt pork or bacon
Strips threaded through the meat add fat that bastes the beef from within as it cooks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the braising liquid, which helps tenderise the meat and brighten the flavour.
Onions
Chopped into the pot, they add sweetness and aroma to the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Keep the heat low and the lid on. Slow, gentle simmering over 5 to 6 hours lets collagen in the tough round break down into gelatin, giving tender meat. Boiling hard toughens the muscle fibres and can dry the surface, so the meat should only just simmer.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, tomato, pork, carrot, onion, vinegar, pepper):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, tomato, pork, carrot, onion, vinegar, 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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