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Alamode Beef

A slow‑cooked beef stew seasoned with spices and thickened with flour and catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Alamode Beef

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut deep gashes in the beef and rub in the salt, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, mace, pepper, and flour.

  2. Fill the gashes with dressing made for turkey.

  3. Add chopped onion to the dressing.

  4. Sew the gashes closed.

  5. Bind the beef with strips of cotton cloth.

Simmer the stew

  1. Place the beef in a small covered kettle with the whole onion and enough cold water to cover it.

  2. Simmer for 3 hours.

  3. Make a thickening with 4 tablespoons of flour.

  4. Stir the thickening into the stew along with 2 tablespoons of catsup.

  5. Simmer for 1 hour longer.

  6. Optionally add a glass of claret or Madeira for extra flavor.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Round beef
Lean, tough cut that becomes tender and moist during long, gentle simmering.
All-purpose flour
Starch that thickens the cooking liquid into a richer stew.
Mushroom or walnut catsup
Adds tangy, savoury depth to the stew's flavour.
Whole onion
Softens and releases sweetness and aroma into the simmering liquid.
Ground cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet aroma to the meat as it cooks.

The step that matters

Simmer for 3 hours. Round is a lean, tough cut. A long, gentle simmer breaks down its connective tissue into gelatin, which makes the meat tender and moist. Cooking too briskly can leave it tough and dry.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, cinnamon, clove, allspice, pepper, flour, onion):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, cinnamon, clove, allspice, pepper, flour, onion. 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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