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Beef a LA Mode

A braised beef dish with tomatoes, carrots, garlic, turnip, onion, red pepper, celery, brown flour, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Beef a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

Marinate

  1. Wipe the beef with fat and salt.

  2. Pour vinegar over the beef.

  3. Chop the vegetables and place them on top of the beef.

  4. Let the beef marinate for several hours.

  5. Pour off the vinegar.

Brown the beef

  1. In a pot, heat a little butter or fat and fry the beef on both sides until browned.

Braise

  1. Add brown flour, 3 cups of water, and the vegetables.

  2. Cook for 20 minutes per pound.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Round beef
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, slow cooking in liquid.
Vinegar
Its acidity softens the surface of the beef during marinating and adds tang.
Brown flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a richer gravy as it simmers.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and savory depth to the cooking liquid.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and aroma to the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Browning the beef on both sides. Frying the beef until deeply browned triggers the Maillard reaction, which builds the savory, roasted flavor of the finished gravy. Pale meat added to the liquid will taste flat.

Swap the garlic

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, tomato, carrot, turnip, onion, pepper, celery. 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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