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Rump of Beef A-LA-mode

A roast rump of beef stuffed with veal, oysters, and mushroom‑infused roll, simmered in gravy with onions, carrots, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,232 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Rump of Beef A-LA-mode

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Remove the bone from the beef and use it with the trimmings to make gravy.

  2. Prepare a rich forcemeat with veal, oysters, and the crumb of a roll steeped in milk, and stuff it into the beef.

  3. Half roast the beef, then lard the top with dried mushrooms and add mushroom powder into the openings.

Stew and finish

  1. Place the beef in a stewpan with 2 quarts of gravy, the onion, and sliced carrots.

  2. Stew until the beef is tender, then strain and thicken the sauce.

  3. Add wine, mushrooms, and oysters to the sauce, and serve with fried paste sippets and warmed pickles.

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

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

  2. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,796 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Adds richness and a tender, moist texture to the forcemeat stuffing.
Oysters
Contribute a savoury, briny flavour to the forcemeat and the finished sauce.
Milk
Softens the roll crumb so it binds the forcemeat and keeps it moist.
Beef gravy
Forms the braising liquid that tenderises the beef and builds the sauce.
Dried and pickled mushrooms
Add concentrated earthy flavour to the larded beef and the sauce.

The step that matters

Stew until the beef is tender. Rump is a tough cut, and it needs slow, moist heat so its connective tissue breaks down into gelatin. Cooking too hard or too briefly leaves the meat dry or chewy.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, oyster, milk, mushroom, onion, carrot):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, oyster, milk, mushroom, onion, carrot. 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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