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Alamode Beef, or Veal

A slow‑cooked beef or veal stew with onions, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 Veal

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the meat into pieces of 3‑4 ounces each.

Make the stew

  1. In a large deep stew‑pan, heat the beef drippings and add the minced onions.

  2. Once hot, dredge the meat with flour and add it to the pan, stirring with a wooden spoon.

  3. After about 10 minutes, continue to dredge with flour until thickened.

  4. Gradually cover the meat with boiling water, stirring to combine.

  5. Skim off any foam when it boils, then add the black pepper, allspice, and bay leaves.

  6. Set the pan aside or over low heat and let it stew slowly for about 3 hours.

Serve

  1. Once the meat is tender, transfer it to a tureen and serve.

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. Flour + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the main substance and, as it stews, becomes tender and rich in flavour.
Flour
Coats the meat and thickens the stewing liquid as it cooks.
Beef drippings
Adds fat for browning the meat and carries savoury beef flavour through the stew.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth as they soften in the fat.

The step that matters

Dredging the meat with flour until thickened. Flour must be stirred in well after it is added so it cooks out and thickens evenly; clumps left in the hot fat stay raw and floury, and the sauce can turn lumpy.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, flour, 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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