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Beef a LA Mode

A roast beef stuffed with bread, butter, onion, herbs, and spices, cooked slowly with water and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,108 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Beef a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Remove the skin and bone from the round of beef and rub it with salt and pepper.

  2. Make a rich stuffing by mixing the stale bread, butter, onion, thyme, cloves, mace, and nutmeg.

  3. Stuff the cavity where the bone was removed with the stuffing.

  4. Make incisions in the beef and insert slices of fat bacon, filling each incision with the stuffing.

  5. Tie the beef securely with string and sprinkle any leftover stuffing on top.

  6. Let the beef sit overnight to allow the seasoning to penetrate.

Roast and serve

  1. When ready to cook, place the beef in a roasting pan and add 1 pint of water.

  2. Roast slowly for about four hours, basting frequently.

  3. Halfway through cooking, pour 1 pint of sherry wine over the beef and continue basting.

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. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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

Round of beef
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender during long, slow roasting.
Stale bread
Absorbs butter and juices to form a moist stuffing that keeps the interior tender.
Butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and keeps the stuffing and meat moist.
Fat bacon
Melts slowly into the meat, adding fat and savory flavor throughout.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and aroma that deepen the flavor of the braising liquid.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth to the stuffing as it cooks.

The step that matters

Slow roasting with frequent basting. Long, gentle heat lets the tough connective tissue in the round break down into tender meat. Basting keeps the surface moist so it does not dry out over the four hours.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, pepper, onion, thyme, butter, clove):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, pepper, onion, thyme, butter, clove. 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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