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Alamode Beef No. 1

A hearty beef stew with bacon, onions, parsley, lemon peel, vinegar, beer, and claret.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Alamode Beef No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Heat the beef well.

  2. Cut the bacon into large pieces for larding.

  3. Season the beef with pepper, cloves, and coarse sea salt.

  4. Lard the beef and place it in a stewpan.

Stew

  1. Add hay-leaf, onions, parsley, lemon peel, vinegar, and beer.

  2. Cover and set over a gentle charcoal fire.

  3. Stew gently, shaking often to prevent sticking.

  4. As the liquid increases, strengthen the fire.

  5. When done, skim off the fat and add claret.

  6. Stew for another 30 minutes, then squeeze in lemon juice 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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 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 beef
Forms the main body of the stew, becoming tender through long, gentle cooking.
Bacon
Larded through the beef, it adds savory fat and flavour as it renders during stewing.
Onions
Break down during stewing, adding sweetness and body to the cooking liquid.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps tenderise the meat.
Claret
Adds wine flavour and acidity to the finished stew after the fat is skimmed.
Lemon juice
Adds bright acidity at the end, lifting the rich flavour of the stew.

The step that matters

Stew gently and shake often. Low, steady heat lets tough connective tissue in the beef slowly soften without the liquid boiling hard. Shaking the pot helps prevent the meat and onions from sticking and scorching on the base.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, clove, parsley, lemon, vinegar, beer):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, clove, parsley, lemon, vinegar, beer. 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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