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Beef a LA Mode

A slow‑cooked beef stew with bacon, vinegar, spices, and vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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

  1. Slice and fry the onions until pale brown.

  2. Cut the other vegetables into small pieces.

  3. Prepare the beef by cutting the bacon into long slices, about 1 inch thick.

  4. Dip the bacon in vinegar, then in a mixture of spices and herbs.

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

  6. Rub the beef with the remaining seasoning and herbs, then bind it with kitchen twine.

Braise and serve

  1. In a well-tinned stew pan, place the beef, vegetables, vinegar, and water.

  2. Simmer gently for 5 hours, turning the meat once or twice.

  3. When ready, remove the beef, take off the twine, and place it on a hot dish.

  4. Skim off fat from the gravy, add port wine, bring to a boil, and pour over the beef.

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 + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Thick flank of beef
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender during long, slow simmering.
Fat bacon
Inserted into the beef to add fat and moisture as it melts during cooking.
Vinegar
Acidity helps tenderise the meat and adds a sharp brightness to the braising liquid.
Onions
Frying to pale brown builds sweetness and savoury depth in the gravy.
Celery
Aromatic vegetables flavour the braising liquid as they soften over the long simmer.
Port wine
Added to the finished gravy for sweetness, depth and colour before serving.

The step that matters

Long, gentle simmer. Simmering slowly rather than boiling keeps the meat from toughening. Connective tissue breaks down into gelatin over hours at low heat, making the beef tender and the gravy rich.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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