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Alamode Beef

A slow‑cooked beef dish with onion, wine, and a thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Alamode Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Tie the beef into a round shape and rub it with salt, pepper, cloves, and sugar.

  2. Let it sit overnight.

  3. Make holes in the meat and fill them with a mixture of bread crumbs, sausages, chopped onion, sweet herbs, cloves, salt, pepper, and eggs.

  4. Sew the holes shut.

Simmer

  1. Stick cloves into the whole onion and place it in a pot.

  2. Insert skewers about 2 inches from the bottom of the pot and lay the beef on top.

  3. Add enough water to cover the beef and cover the pot tightly to keep steam in.

  4. Simmer slowly for 4 hours, turning the meat 3-4 times.

  5. Pour red wine over the meat and let it stew for an additional hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Thicken the gravy with browned flour and additional salt, then boil it once.

  2. Serve some gravy over the meat and the rest in a sauce tureen.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Clove + red winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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 and becomes tender during slow simmering.
Eggs
Bind the bread crumb stuffing so it holds together when sliced.
Sausages
Add fat and savory flavor to the stuffing inside the beef.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavor as the meat stews.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavor.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly and keep the pot tightly covered. Gentle, low heat over a long time breaks down the tough connective tissue in round of beef, while a tight lid keeps steam in so the meat stays moist rather than drying out.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, clove, sugar, egg, red wine, flour):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, clove, sugar, egg, red wine, 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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