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Beef a LA Mode

A slow‑cooked beef stew flavored with beer, wine, herbs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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. Preheat your pot and place the beef inside, covering it with water.

Stew

  1. Add the chopped onions, garlic, bay leaves, mushrooms, beer, wine, pepper, Cayenne pepper, and vinegar.

  2. Stir in the bread crumbs and cover the pot tightly.

  3. Stew for 6 to 8 hours, depending on the size of the beef piece.

Strain and serve

  1. Remove the beef and place it in a deep dish to keep warm.

  2. Strain the gravy through a sieve, discarding the solids, and skim off the fat.

  3. Bring the gravy to a boil, season to taste, and pour it over the beef.

  4. Serve hot, or let it cool and slice for a strong jelly.

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. Allspice + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

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

  5. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

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

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 stew and becomes tender during long, slow cooking.
Onions
Break down during stewing to add sweetness and body to the gravy.
Bread crumbs
Thicken the gravy as they soak up liquid and break down.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the gravy.
Strong beer
Contributes bitterness and malty flavour to the gravy.
Bacon fat
Adds richness and savoury flavour that carries through the stew.

The step that matters

Stew for 6 to 8 hours. Beef is tough connective tissue that only becomes tender with long, low, moist cooking. Stopping early leaves the meat chewy, so the time should match the size of the piece.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, clove, allspice, parsley, onion, garlic, mushroom):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, clove, allspice, parsley, onion, garlic, mushroom. 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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