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Beef a LA Mode

Beef a la Mode is a stew of beef, ground rice, stock, bay leaves, peppercorns, onion, mushroom ketchup, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper 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 ↓

Beef a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Remove the drippings or fat from the meat and mix it with the ground rice to form a smooth paste.

  2. Add the seasoning and stock, then bring to a boil.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes.

  4. Skim off any fat, return to the pan, and add a little browning.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut the meat into even pieces and warm it in the sauce.

  2. Serve very hot.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Rice + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,515 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Clove + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Provides the main body of the dish, with its flavour carried into the sauce as it warms.
Ground rice
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce when mixed in as a paste and simmered.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries the seasoning through the dish.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savoury depth to the sauce through its concentrated umami flavour.

The step that matters

Mixing the ground rice into a smooth paste. Ground rice clumps if it meets hot liquid directly. Mixing it first with the fat from the meat to a smooth paste lets the starch disperse evenly, so the sauce thickens without lumps.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, rice, onion, mushroom, ketchup, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, rice, onion, mushroom, ketchup, 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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