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A LA-mode Beef

A braised beef dish flavored with vinegar, herbs, spices, bacon, and gravy, served with pickles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

A LA-mode Beef

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Trim the beef and remove all fat.

  2. Finely chop sweet herbs and shallot, then mix them with the spices.

  3. Soak the mixture in vinegar rubbed with garlic.

  4. Cut bacon into strips and dip the bacon strips in the herb mixture.

  5. Lard the beef on both sides with the bacon.

  6. Rub the beef with remaining herbs and spices.

Bake and serve

  1. Flour the meat and add butter rolled in flour.

  2. Pour in water.

  3. Bake the beef in the oven at 350°F (175°C).

  4. Strain the gravy.

  5. Serve with pickles on top.

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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Thyme + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

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

  5. Marjoram + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 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

Beef rump
Provides the meat that becomes tender during the long, slow braise.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the sauce its sharp, tangy flavour.
Bacon
Melts fat into the lean beef, adding moisture and savoury richness.
Flour
Coats the meat and thickens the gravy as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the gravy, rounding out the sharp vinegar.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, parsley, thyme, marjoram, shallot, pepper, allspice):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, parsley, thyme, marjoram, shallot, pepper, allspice. 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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