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Beef A-LA-mode

A slow‑cooked beef or mutton stew flavored with cloves, mace, allspice, parsley, bacon, onions, garlic, bay leaves, champignons, porter, and red wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice 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 the meat

  1. Season the beef or mutton with cloves, mace, allspice, parsley, herbs, bacon, pepper, and salt.

  2. Insert a large pin through the meat.

  3. Place the meat in a pot.

  4. Cover the meat with water.

  5. Add chopped onions, garlic, bay leaves, champignons, porter, and red wine.

  6. Cover the pot tightly.

Simmer

  1. Simmer for 6 hours (8 hours for larger pieces).

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Remove the meat from the pot.

  2. Keep the meat warm.

  3. Skim the fat from the gravy.

  4. Strain the gravy.

  5. Add the champignons back.

  6. Season with cayenne pepper and salt.

  7. Boil the gravy for 15 minutes.

  8. Serve the gravy over the beef or pour it over sliced 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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 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. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef or leg of mutton
Provides the main meat that becomes tender during long, slow simmering.
Porter or ale
Adds depth and malty flavour to the braising liquid and gravy.
Red wine
Adds acidity and rich flavour to the braising liquid and gravy.
Onions
Break down during simmering to add sweetness and body to the gravy.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that enriches the meat and gravy.
Bay leaves
Add a subtle aromatic flavour to the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly with the pot tightly covered. Long, gentle simmering breaks down the tough connective tissue in the cut so it becomes tender. Boiling hard or letting liquid escape would toughen the meat and concentrate the gravy unevenly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, clove, allspice, parsley, pepper, onion, garlic. 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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