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Beef A-LA-mode

A slow‑cooked beef stew with bacon, spices, onions, garlic, bay leaves, champignons, and port or ale, served with its gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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

  1. Chop the bacon and mix it with the spices and herbs.

  2. Thrust a large pin through the beef.

  3. Place the beef in a pot and cover it with water.

  4. Add onions, garlic, bay leaves, and champignons.

  5. Pour in the port or ale and red wine.

  6. Cover the pot tightly.

Stew and make the gravy

  1. Stew for 6 hours for a small piece or 8 hours for a large piece.

  2. Remove the beef and keep it hot.

  3. Skim the fat from the gravy.

  4. Strain the gravy.

  5. Add champignons back.

  6. Season with cayenne pepper and salt.

  7. Boil for 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Slice the beef.

  2. Serve with gravy around it.

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
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long, slow stewing.
Port or ale
Adds depth and flavour to the stewing liquid and gravy.
Red wine
Adds acidity and rich flavour to the braising liquid and gravy.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that enriches the meat and gravy.
Onions
Break down during stewing, adding sweetness and body to the gravy.

The step that matters

Stew for the full time, covered tightly. Long, gentle, covered stewing breaks down the tough connective tissue in a lean cut of beef, making it tender. Too short a time or too much heat leaves the meat tough and dry.

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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