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Another Beef a LA Mode

A cured and stuffed beef prepared with saltpetre, sugar, spices, and a butter‑parsley mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Another Beef a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the beef

  1. Rub saltpetre and brown sugar into the beef.

  2. Let the beef sit for 24 hours.

  3. Salt the beef with coarse sea salt.

  4. Let the beef cure for 10 days to 2 weeks.

  5. Wash off the brine.

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Fillet the beef firmly.

  2. Prepare stuffing by mixing chopped parsley, anchovy, mace, black pepper, Jamaica pepper, and butter.

  3. Make holes in the beef with a large knife.

  4. Stuff the holes with the mixture.

Bake and store

  1. Place the beef in a pan that fits it snugly.

  2. Fill the pan with cold water.

  3. Add whole black pepper.

  4. Cover the beef with a flour-and-water paste.

  5. Bake for several hours until cooked through.

  6. Once cooled, remove the crust and fat.

  7. Store the beef in the pan.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Saltpetre
Cures the beef and keeps its pink colour during long curing.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the saltiness of the cure.
Flour
Forms a paste crust that shields the beef during long baking.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture to the stuffing, keeping it rich and soft.

The step that matters

Let the beef cure for 10 days to 2 weeks. Saltpetre and salt need the full curing time to penetrate the thick cut and preserve it evenly. Stopping early leaves the centre uncured and less safely preserved.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, sugar, parsley, anchovy, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, parsley, anchovy, pepper, butter, flour. 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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