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Alamode Beef, or Veal.

A slow‑cooked stew of beef or veal with onions, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Alamode Beef, or Veal.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the meat into 3 to 4-ounce pieces.

Brown and thicken

  1. Heat the beef drippings in a large deep stewpan.

  2. Add the onions.

  3. Once hot, dredge the meat in flour.

  4. Add the dredged meat to the stewpan.

  5. Stir with a wooden spoon for about 10 minutes.

  6. Continue to dredge with flour until thickened.

Stew

  1. Cover with boiling water.

  2. Skim off any foam when it boils.

  3. Add the black pepper, allspice, and bay leaves.

  4. Reduce heat.

  5. Let it stew very slowly for about 3 hours.

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 + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Flour + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, slow stewing.
Flour
Coats the meat and thickens the stewing liquid as it cooks.
Beef drippings
Adds fat for searing the meat and carries rich, savory flavor.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften in the hot fat.

The step that matters

Continue to dredge with flour until thickened. Flour must be stirred in and cooked to avoid lumps and a raw starchy taste. Added gradually, it thickens the liquid evenly as the stew simmers.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

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