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Beef a LA Mode

A slow‑roasted beef with vegetables, seasoned and basted, served with celery leaves and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Beef a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Select a good round of beef and make incisions with a sharp knife.

  2. Fill the incisions with a dressing made of bread, seasoned with salt, pepper, onion, and Worcestershire sauce.

  3. Compress the dressing into the beef as much as possible.

  4. Stick whole cloves over the top of the beef.

Roast and serve

  1. Place the beef in a roasting pan with enough water to prevent burning.

  2. Cover with a large pan to keep in the steam and cook slowly for 2 to 3 hours.

  3. Half an hour before serving, remove the cover and baste frequently to allow it to brown.

  4. During the last half hour, add thin slices of potatoes, carrots, and turnips to the pan.

  5. Garnish the dish with celery leaves and parsley 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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 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

Round of beef
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender with slow, covered cooking.
Bread dressing (in the method)
Fills the incisions, adding moisture and flavour inside the meat as it cooks.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury, tangy depth to the dressing and the meat's flavour.
Potatoes
Absorb cooking juices and add starch and body to the pan dish.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and colour as they soften in the pan juices.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and a tender texture as they cook in the pan juices.

The step that matters

Half an hour before serving, remove the cover and baste frequently. Removing the cover lets surface moisture evaporate, and frequent basting with pan juices helps the meat brown rather than dry out. Covered slow cooking first keeps the beef moist.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, onion, sauce, potato, carrot, turnip):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, onion, sauce, potato, carrot, turnip. 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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