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Beef a LA Mode

A slow‑cooked beef stew with bacon, calf’s feet, carrots, onion, and bouquet garni.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Beef a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Remove the rind from the bacon and cut it into strips.

  2. Sprinkle the bacon strips with pepper and lard the beef along its grain, then tie it up.

Braise

  1. In a stewpan, combine the beef, stock, bacon rind, and calf's feet.

  2. Bring to a boil, skim the surface, then add salt, carrots, onion, bouquet garni, garlic, and pepper.

  3. Close the stewpan tightly and simmer slowly for 4 hours.

  4. Remove the beef, calf's feet, and carrots, and keep them warm.

  5. Strain the cooking liquid into another stewpan and reduce it over high heat for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Remove the string from the beef, place it on a dish, and garnish with carrots and calf's feet.

  2. Pour the reduced liquid over the beef 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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Thick flank of beef
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and sliceable through long, slow cooking.
Calf's feet
Release gelatin into the liquid, giving the reduced sauce body and a glossy, lightly sticky texture.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor to the beef as it melts and bastes the meat during cooking.
Stock
Serves as the braising liquid that cooks the beef and becomes the base of the sauce.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aroma to the braising liquid and are served alongside the beef.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly with the stewpan closed. Gentle, long simmering breaks down the tough connective tissue in flank so the meat becomes tender. A hard boil toughens and dries the meat, and a loose lid lets too much liquid evaporate.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, onion, garlic, pepper. 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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