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Beef A-LA-mode

A slow‑cooked beef stew with bacon, onions, carrots, turnip, celery, and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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

  1. Dip the bacon slices in vinegar, then coat them with the seasoning mix of salt, pepper, allspice, clove, and herbs.

  2. Make holes in the beef for larding and rub the seasoning all over the meat.

  3. Bind the beef tightly with kitchen twine.

Braise

  1. In a well-tinned pot, place the beef and add the fried onions, carrots, turnip, celery, and water.

  2. Simmer gently for 10-12 hours, turning the meat twice, until extremely tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the beef and strain the gravy, discarding the fat.

  2. Combine the beef with the gravy and add the port wine.

  3. Remove the twine and serve with the vegetables or cut into dice for garnish.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Allspice + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Flank beef
Long, gentle cooking breaks down the tough connective tissue, giving a very tender texture.
Bacon fat
Larded into the meat, it adds moisture and rich flavour during the long cook.
Onions
Frying them brown adds deep colour and savoury sweetness to the gravy.
Carrots
Release sweetness and body into the cooking liquid, forming the base of the gravy.
Celery
Adds aromatic depth to the cooking liquid as it slowly softens.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and a rich, fruity depth to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for the full time. Holding the pot at a low, steady simmer lets collagen in the beef slowly convert to gelatin, producing tender meat. Boiling hard tightens the muscle fibres and dries the meat, so the heat must stay low and the cooking long.

Swap the chive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, vinegar, pepper, allspice, clove, parsley, thyme):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, vinegar, pepper, allspice, clove, parsley, thyme. 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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