Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓
Beef a LA Mode
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the beef
Order a solid chunk of beef round, 6-8 inches thick.
Bind the beef with stout muslin and twine.
Cut the fat salt pork into long, narrow slices.
Insert the pork slices into incisions in the beef, spaced 1 inch apart.
Make a force meat with bread crumbs, chopped pork, allspice, mace, and vinegar. Rub the force meat into the beef.
Cook and serve
Place the beef in a large pot and cover the beef with hot water.
Cook the beef slowly for 3 hours.
Let the beef cool in the gravy under a heavy weight.
Remove the string and muslin from the beef. Slice the beef horizontally to 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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Beef + porktop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,690 recipes
Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).
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Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,189 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,032 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
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Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,371 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
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Allspice + vinegartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,548 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Beef round
- Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long slow cooking.
- Fat salt pork
- Adds fat and richness that moistens the lean beef as it cooks.
- Bread crumbs
- Absorbs liquid and binds the force meat so it holds together in the beef.
- Pork
- Adds fat and savory flavor to the force meat stuffing.
- Vinegar
- Adds acidity that helps tenderize the meat and brightens the flavor.
The step that matters
Cook the beef slowly for 3 hours. Low, slow heat breaks down tough connective tissue in lean round gradually, making it tender. Cooking too hot can toughen the meat and dry it out before the collagen has softened.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pork, bread, allspice, vinegar):
- Clovefits better
- Marjoramfits better
- Thymefits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, bread, allspice, vinegar. 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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