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Beef A-LA-mode

A slow‑cooked beef stew with bacon, vegetables, wine, and ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 23 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. Rub the beef with vinegar and season with salt, black pepper, allspice, ground clove, and the herbs.

  2. Make deep holes in the beef and insert the bacon slices.

  3. Bind the beef tightly with kitchen twine.

Braise

  1. In a well-tinned pot, fry the onions until brown.

  2. Add the beef, carrots, turnip, celery, and water.

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

  4. Toast some bread until deep brown.

  5. Add the toasted bread to the pot along with wine and anchovy liquor or ketchup.

  6. Add chopped shallots and a cup of port wine to the gravy.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the tape from the beef.

  2. Serve with vegetables.

  3. Strain and serve the vegetables 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. Leek + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  4. Allspice + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Parsley + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Long slow simmering breaks down connective tissue, making the meat very tender.
Bacon
Melting fat from the bacon adds richness and moisture to the lean beef.
Vinegar
Its acidity helps tenderise the surface of the beef before cooking.
Onions
Frying them brown builds deep colour and savoury sweetness in the braise.
Port wine
Adds sweetness, body and depth of flavour to the finished gravy.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweet-sharp acidity and colour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 10-12 hours. Too much heat makes the meat's muscle fibres tighten and toughen, while low gentle heat slowly dissolves collagen into gelatin, so the beef becomes tender. Turning the meat keeps it evenly cooked and moist.

Swap the leek

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits about as well
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Leekthe original

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