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Alamode Beef

A large round beef stuffed with bread crumbs, sausages, onion, herbs, cloves, salt, pepper, and eggs, stewed in wine and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 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 ↓

Alamode Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

  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 stuffing.

  4. Make holes in the beef every 2 inches and fill them with the stuffing, then sew them 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, and lay the beef on them.

  3. Cover the pot tightly to prevent steam from escaping and stew gently for 4 hours, turning the meat 2-3 times.

  4. Pour a pint of red wine over the meat and stew for an additional hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Thicken the gravy with flour and salt, skim off the fat, and boil once.

  2. Serve some gravy over the meat and 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 beef
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender during long, gentle stewing.
Eggs
Bind the stuffing so it holds together inside the beef.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body to the stuffing.
Sausages
Add fat and savoury flavour to the stuffing.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the stewing liquid and gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it boils.

The step that matters

Covering the pot tightly while stewing. A tight lid traps steam so the liquid keeps the meat moist over the long four-hour stew. If steam escapes, the liquid reduces and the beef can dry out and toughen.

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.

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