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Rump of Beef A-LA Mode

A beef rump is hollowed, stuffed with a spice mixture, tied, and cured for eight days.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Rump of Beef A-LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Lay the beef open on the underside and remove the bones.

  2. Finely mince the onion, eschalots, and anchovy.

Stuff and tie

  1. Mix the minced ingredients with white pepper, cloves, thyme, parsley, bread crumbs, and the raw egg.

  2. Stuff the mixture into the cavity where the bones were removed and tie it tightly with broad tape.

  3. Rub the meat all over with mixed spices.

Cure

  1. If it is cold, let it sit for eight days, turning it daily and rubbing it with spices.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef rump
Forms the large meat body that is opened, stuffed, and tied.
Raw egg
Binds the stuffing so the bread crumbs and minced aromatics hold together when sliced.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the stuffing hold its shape around the meat.
Anchovy
Adds savoury depth to the stuffing, blending into the meat's flavour.

The step that matters

Tying the stuffing in. If the roll is tied loosely, the stuffing can shift or escape during cooking, leaving gaps and an uneven slice. Tying it tightly keeps the filling packed in place.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, clove, anchovy, thyme, parsley, bread):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, clove, anchovy, thyme, parsley, bread. 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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