Skip to main content
Main

Alamode Beef

A beef stew with force‑meat stuffing, simmered with wine and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

  1. Tie the beef in a round shape with strong string.

  2. Rub the beef with pepper, salt, ground cloves, and sugar the night before cooking.

  3. Mix bread crumbs, sausages, chopped onion, sweet herbs, ground cloves, salt, pepper, and eggs to make a force-meat.

  4. Make holes in the beef about 2 inches apart.

  5. Fill the holes with the force-meat.

  6. Sew the holes up.

Stew

  1. Place the studded onion in a pot with water and red wine.

  2. Put skewers in the pot about 2 inches from the bottom.

  3. Lay the beef on the skewers.

  4. Cover the pot tightly to keep steam in.

  5. Let it stew gently for 4 hours, turning the meat 2-3 times.

  6. Pour a pint of red wine over the meat.

  7. Let it stew for an additional hour.

Finish the gravy and serve

  1. Thicken the gravy with flour and salt.

  2. Skim off the fat.

  3. Bring the gravy to a boil.

  4. Serve some gravy over the meat.

  5. Serve the rest in a sauce-tureen.

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

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

  3. Clove + red winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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 and becomes tender during long, gentle stewing.
Bread crumbs
Bind the force-meat so it holds together inside the beef.
Eggs
Bind the force-meat, helping it set as it cooks.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the braising liquid and gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the meat.

The step that matters

Stewing gently with the lid tightly covered. Gentle, steady heat keeps the liquid below a hard boil so the tough connective tissue in the beef breaks down slowly without the meat drying out. A tight lid traps steam so the braising liquid does not evaporate.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes