Skip to main content
Main

Beef a LA Mode

A roast beef stuffed with a bread crumb mixture, seasoned and slow‑roasted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 and rest

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

  2. Rub the mixture into the beef.

  3. Let the beef sit overnight.

Stuff the beef

  1. Prepare stuffing with bread crumbs, diced pork, thyme, sage, pepper, nutmeg, cloves, and minced onion.

  2. Moisten the stuffing with milk or water.

  3. Stuff the beef where the bone was removed and secure with skewers and tape.

  4. Make incisions in the beef.

  5. Fill the incisions with stuffing.

  6. Dredge the entire beef with flour.

Roast and finish

  1. Place the beef in a dripping pan.

  2. Pour hot water over the beef.

  3. Cover with a large pan to retain steam.

  4. Roast slowly for 3 to 4 hours.

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

  6. Skim fat from the drippings.

  7. 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

Beef
Forms the main body of the dish; slow roasting with moisture turns its tough connective tissue tender.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and liquid in the stuffing, keeping it soft and holding its shape.
Fat salt pork
Melts during roasting, adding fat that carries flavor and keeps the stuffing moist.
Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the gravy and give it a smooth, rich body.
Flour
Dredging coats the surface, helping it brown and thickening the drippings.

The step that matters

Slow roasting under a covered pan. Low, steady heat under steam breaks down the tough connective tissue in an upper round cut. Rushing with high heat or uncovering too early leaves the meat dry and chewy.

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.

More beef à la mode recipes

French 3 See all 169 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipes