Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
Beef A-LA-mode
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the beef
Cut incisions in the meat about 1 inch apart and within 1 inch of the opposite side with a sharp knife.
Season the meat with coarse sea salt and black pepper according to its size.
In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs, chopped onion, butter, and additional salt and pepper to taste.
Fill the incisions in the meat with the dressing.
Simmer and serve
Place the meat in a pot with 1 pint of water and cover it tightly.
Let it simmer for 6 to 8 hours.
Optionally, add a few cloves or allspice for extra flavor.
Once the meat is done, remove it from the pot and thicken the gravy with a little flour.
Let the gravy boil once, then serve.
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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Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,874 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together17,451 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
-
Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,395 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
-
Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,092 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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; long simmering turns its connective tissue tender.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorb butter and onion juices to form a moist, savory dressing inside the meat.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, keeping the dressing moist as it cooks.
- Onion
- Adds savory aroma and depth to the dressing.
- Flour
- Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy.
The step that matters
Long, gentle simmer. Simmering too hard or too briefly leaves the tough beef stringy. Slow, low-temperature cooking over several hours breaks down collagen into gelatin, producing tender meat and a rich gravy.
Swap the clove
The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, bread, onion, butter, allspice, flour):
- Thymefits better
- Parsleyfits about as well
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Clovethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, bread, onion, butter, allspice, flour. 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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