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Beef a LA Mode

A thickened beef stew cooked slowly with onions, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Beef a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

  2. Heat the beef drippings and onions in a deep stewpan.

  3. Flour the meat.

  4. Add the floured meat to the pan, stirring continuously.

Make the stew

  1. After 10 minutes, dredge the meat with more flour until thickened.

  2. Gradually cover the meat with boiling water, stirring well.

  3. Skim off any foam when it boils.

  4. Add black pepper and allspice.

  5. Let it stew gently for about 3 hours until the meat is tender.

Serve

  1. Transfer the meat to a tureen.

  2. Serve.

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 main body of the stew and becomes tender during long, gentle cooking.
Flour
Coats the meat and thickens the stewing liquid as it cooks.
Beef drippings
Adds fat for browning the meat and carries flavour through the stew.
Onions
Soften and add sweetness and aroma to the base of the stew.
Boiling water
Forms the liquid in which the meat simmers and becomes tender.

The step that matters

Dredge with flour and thicken. Flour must be stirred in evenly as the liquid forms; added unevenly it clumps, and the stew may thicken unevenly instead of becoming smooth.

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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