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 ↓
Alamode Beef
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the beef
Tie the beef in a round shape with strong string.
Rub the beef with pepper, salt, ground cloves, and sugar the night before cooking.
Make a force-meat by mixing bread crumbs, sausages, chopped onion, sweet herbs, ground cloves, salt, pepper, and eggs.
Make holes in the beef about two inches apart and fill them with the force-meat, then sew them up.
Stew the beef
Place the studded onion in a pot with water and red wine.
Insert skewers in the pot about two inches from the bottom and lay the beef on them.
Cover the pot tightly to keep steam in and let it stew gently for four hours, turning the meat two or three times.
Pour a pint of red wine over the meat and let it stew for an additional hour.
Finish and serve
Thicken the gravy with flour and salt, skim off the fat, and bring it to a boil.
Serve some gravy over the meat and the rest in a sauce-tureen.
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.
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Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together17,451 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,092 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Clove + red winetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together849 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,971 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together68,474 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, becoming tender during long, gentle stewing.
- Eggs
- Bind the force-meat so the stuffing holds together when sliced.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb juices and add body to the force-meat, keeping the stuffing moist.
- Red wine
- Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the stewing liquid and gravy.
- Flour
- Thickens the gravy so it coats the meat and plates.
- Sausages
- Add fat and savoury flavour to the force-meat stuffing.
The step that matters
Stewing the beef gently with the pot tightly covered. Slow, low-heat stewing with a sealed lid lets collagen in the tough round break down into gelatin, making the meat tender without drying it out. Boiling hard would toughen the muscle fibres and reduce the liquid too quickly.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, clove, sugar, bread, egg, red wine):
- Capsicumfits better
- Tomatofits better
- Shallotfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, clove, sugar, bread, egg, red wine. 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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