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Another Beef a LA Mode

A cured flank of beef seasoned with saltpetre, brown sugar, and spices, stuffed with parsley, anchovy, mace, and pepper, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Another Beef a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the beef

  1. Rub 3 ounces of saltpetre and ½ pound of brown sugar into a piece of thick flank of beef.

  2. Let it sit for 24 hours.

  3. Salt it with coarse sea salt and let it cure for 10 days to 2 weeks.

  4. Wash off the brine.

Stuff and bake

  1. Fillet the beef firmly.

  2. Prepare stuffing with chopped parsley, anchovy, mace, black pepper, Jamaica pepper, and a little butter.

  3. Make holes in the beef with a large knife and stuff the holes with the mixture.

  4. Place the beef in a pan that fits it snugly.

  5. Fill the pan with cold water.

  6. Add whole black pepper.

  7. Cover the beef with a flour-and-water paste.

  8. Bake for several hours.

Finish

  1. Once cooled, remove the crust and fat.

  2. Keep the beef in the pan.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Parsley + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Parsley + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,702 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Saltpetre
Cures the meat, giving it a pink colour and a firm, preserved texture.
Brown sugar
Balances the salt and adds mild sweetness to the cured meat.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the beef during the long cure.
Anchovy
Adds savoury depth to the stuffing, which melts into the meat as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the stuffing, keeping it moist as it bakes.

The step that matters

Cure timing. Saltpetre and salt need the full curing period to penetrate thick beef evenly. Rinsing too early leaves the centre uncured and unevenly seasoned, while over-curing makes the meat overly salty and dense.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, parsley, anchovy, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, parsley, anchovy, pepper, butter, 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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