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Beef A-LA-royal

Stuffed beef with bacon, parsley, and oysters, baked in wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beef A-LA-royal

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the beef

  1. Make holes in the beef about 1 inch apart.

  2. Fill one hole with fat bacon, a second with chopped parsley, and a third with chopped oysters.

  3. Season the fillings with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  4. Pour 1 pint of boiling hot wine over the stuffed beef.

  5. Dredge the beef well with flour.

Roast and serve

  1. Place the beef in a 350°F (175°C) oven for over 3 hours.

  2. When done, skim off the fat and strain the gravy over the beef.

  3. Garnish with pickles before serving.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef brisket
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long, slow cooking.
Fat bacon
Melts during cooking, adding moisture and rich flavour to the surrounding meat.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury flavour to the stuffing inside the beef.
Red wine
Moistens the beef and builds the gravy, adding acidity and depth of flavour.
Flour
Coats the outside of the beef, helping it brown and thickening the gravy.

The step that matters

Long, low oven cooking. Brisket is a tough, connective-tissue-rich cut. Slow cooking at moderate heat over several hours breaks down collagen into gelatin, making the meat tender. Cooking too hot or too briefly leaves it tough.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, parsley, oyster, pepper, red wine, flour):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, parsley, oyster, pepper, red wine, flour. 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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