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Beef A-LA-mode

Beef à la Mode is a slow‑cooked flank beef with bacon, vinegar, spices, vegetables, and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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 the beef

  1. Choose a piece of thick flank beef.

  2. Cut the beef into long slices.

  3. Dip the bacon slices into vinegar.

  4. Dip the bacon slices into the seasoning mix of salt, black pepper, allspice, ground clove, parsley, chives, thyme, savoury, and marjoram.

  5. Make deep holes in the beef for larding.

  6. Rub the beef with the seasoning.

  7. Bind the beef tightly with tape.

Braise

  1. In a well-tinned pot, fry the onions until brown.

  2. Add the onions to the beef along with carrots, turnip, celery, and water.

  3. Simmer gently for 10 to 12 hours, turning the meat twice until extremely tender.

  4. Remove the fat from the gravy.

  5. Keep the beef covered.

  6. Combine the beef and gravy.

  7. Add port wine.

  8. Remove the tape.

Serve

  1. Serve with the vegetables.

  2. Strain the vegetables.

  3. Serve the diced vegetables as a garnish.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Allspice + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Flank beef
Long simmering breaks down tough connective tissue, leaving the meat tender and sliceable.
Bacon
Melting fat from the slices adds moisture and rich flavor as they are larded into the beef.
Onions
Browning them first builds deep color and savory flavor into the gravy.
Carrots
Their natural sugars soften during simmering, adding gentle sweetness to the gravy.
Port wine
Added at the end, it contributes sweetness and a rounded, fruity depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 10 to 12 hours. Low, steady heat slowly converts tough collagen into gelatin, making the beef tender. A hard boil tightens muscle fibers and toughens the meat, so keep the liquid barely simmering and turn the meat as directed.

Swap the chive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, vinegar, pepper, allspice, clove, parsley, thyme):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, vinegar, pepper, allspice, clove, parsley, thyme. 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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