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Alamode Beef, or Sour Meat

A beef stew simmered with vinegar, onion, spices, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Alamode Beef, or Sour Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine vinegar and water in a bowl.

  2. Season the beef with onion, pepper, salt, allspice, and bay leaves.

  3. Add the breadcrumbs to the beef mixture.

Stew

  1. Cover and let it stew gently for 3-4 hours.

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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Onion + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,270 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
Provides the meat, which becomes tender as its connective tissue breaks down during slow stewing.
Vinegar
Adds the sour flavor that defines the dish and helps tenderize the meat.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb liquid and thicken the stewing juices, giving the sauce more body.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and sweetness that deepens as it cooks slowly.
Bay leaves
Release aromatic oils during stewing, adding a subtle herbal fragrance.

The step that matters

Cover and stew gently. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer, not a hard boil, lets collagen in the beef break down slowly. Boiling hard toughens the meat fibers and can dry the stew out.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, vinegar, onion, pepper):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, vinegar, onion, pepper. 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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