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Beef a LA Mode

A roasted beef roast seasoned with spices, larded with bacon, and basted with lard and gravy, finished with wine and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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

  1. Hang the beef until quite tender.

  2. Spread a mixture of spices over the beef, moistened with vinegar.

  3. Fill the hole where the bone was with seasoned stuffing.

  4. Skewer the stuffed beef.

  5. Shape the beef.

  6. Lard the beef with strips of fat bacon.

Roast and baste

  1. Place the beef on a small tripod in a baking dish.

  2. Put the dish in the oven.

  3. Baste the meat continually with lard and gravy.

  4. Half an hour before it is done, pour over half a tumbler of red wine mixed with a spoonful of flour.

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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Allspice + coriandertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together393 recipes

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

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 its tenderness depends on the hanging step.
Fat bacon
Strips larded through the meat add fat that keeps the lean beef moist during roasting.
Fine saltpetre
Cures the meat, helping it keep its colour and giving it a distinct cured flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that helps carry the spice mixture into the surface of the beef.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the salt and spices and helps the surface brown.

The step that matters

Adding the wine and flour. Flour thickens liquid only when it is evenly dispersed and heated. Pouring it in clumps leaves lumps in the gravy, so it should be fully mixed with the wine first. Continual basting keeps the surface moist and adds flavour to the pan juices.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ginger, allspice, clove, coriander, pepper, vinegar. 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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