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Beef a LA Mode

Beef à la Mode is a stuffed roast beef with spices, breadcrumbs, pork, and herbs, slow‑roasted in a dripping pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Beef a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

Season the beef

  1. Mix salt, pepper, ginger, mace, cinnamon, and cloves.

  2. Rub the mixture into the beef and let it sit overnight.

  3. In the morning, combine bread crumbs, diced pork, thyme, sage, pepper, nutmeg, cloves, and minced onion.

  4. Moisten the mixture with milk or water.

Stuff and tie

  1. Stuff the mixture into the beef where the bone was removed.

  2. Secure the ends with a skewer and bind with tape.

  3. Make incisions in the beef and fill with stuffing.

  4. Dredge the beef with flour.

Roast and finish

  1. Place the beef in a dripping pan.

  2. Pour hot water over it.

  3. Cover with a large pan.

  4. Roast slowly for 3 to 4 hours.

  5. If the meat is tough, stew it in water until tender.

  6. Then brown it in the oven.

  7. If serving hot, skim fat from the gravy.

  8. Stir in beaten egg yolks after removing from heat.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Upper round of beef
Forms the bulk of the dish; slow cooking softens its connective tissue for tenderness.
Fine bread crumbs
Absorb juices and hold the stuffing together as a binder.
Fat salt pork
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing moist and carries flavour through the roast.
Onion
Adds aroma and mild sweetness as it cooks into the stuffing.
Flour
Dredging helps the surface brown and lightly thickens the juices.
Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the gravy and add richness when stirred in.

The step that matters

Stir in beaten egg yolks after removing from heat. Egg yolks thicken gently from residual heat. If added to boiling liquid, they can scramble and leave the gravy grainy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, ginger, cinnamon, clove, beef, bread, pork):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, ginger, cinnamon, clove, beef, bread, pork. 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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