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Beef Alamode

A braised beef dish with bacon, vinegar, herbs, and vegetables, simmered slowly until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 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 ↓

Beef Alamode

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Salt the beef thoroughly before placing it in the pot.

  2. Flour a coarse cloth, place the meat inside it, and fold the cloth tightly around the meat.

  3. Boil the wrapped meat in a pot of boiling water for 4-5 hours until tender.

Lard the beef

  1. Prepare the bacon by dipping it in vinegar.

  2. Season the bacon with salt, black pepper, Jamaica pepper, clove, parsley, chives, thyme, savory, and marjoram.

  3. Make deep holes in the beef and insert the seasoned bacon into the holes.

  4. Rub the beef with the remaining seasoning.

  5. Bind the beef tightly with tape.

Stew and serve

  1. Place the beef in a well-tinned pot over medium heat.

  2. Add the fried onions, carrots, turnip, celery, and a small amount of water.

  3. Simmer gently for 10-12 hours.

  4. Turn the meat twice until extremely tender.

  5. Remove the fat from the gravy.

  6. Keep the beef covered.

  7. Combine the gravy with port wine before serving.

  8. Serve with the vegetables.

  9. Strain the vegetables and serve diced as a garnish.

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. Clove + marjoramtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the main structure; long slow cooking softens its connective tissue until very tender.
Bacon fat
Adds moisture and rich flavour as it melts into the meat and gravy during cooking.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the rich, slow-cooked flavour of the beef.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth to the gravy, rounding out its savoury flavour.
Onions
Browned onions add sweetness and a deep savoury base to the gravy.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and aroma to the cooking liquid and gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 10-12 hours. Gentle, low heat slowly converts the beef's connective tissue into gelatin, leaving it tender and moist. A rolling boil toughens the muscle fibres and dries the meat out.

Swap the chive

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits about as well
  4. Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, vinegar, pepper, clove, parsley, thyme, marjoram. 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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