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Beef A-LA-mode

A slow‑cooked beef dish marinated with spices, bacon, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Beef A-LA-mode

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Make deep incisions in the beef about 1 inch apart and insert bacon, clove, allspice, cayenne, chopped onion, and salt on both sides.

  2. Place the beef in a deep crock and cover with vinegar.

  3. Let it marinate for 36 to 48 hours.

  4. Drain off all the liquid.

Cook and serve

  1. In a deep pot, heat a large spoonful of butter and add the beef.

  2. Simmer slowly, turning occasionally, until done, about 2 to 3 hours.

  3. To make gravy, add 1 tablespoon of dry flour to the bottom of the pot just before removing the beef.

  4. Serve hot or cold.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Allspice + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Clove + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Rump beef
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long slow simmering.
Vinegar
Acidic marinade that softens the meat's tough fibers during the 36 to 48 hour soak.
Bacon
Inserted into the incisions, it adds fat and savory flavor that melts into the meat as it cooks.
Butter
Fat for initial browning of the beef in the pot, adding richness and flavor.
Dry flour
Thickens the cooking liquid at the end, turning it into a gravy.

The step that matters

Simmering the beef. Cooking at a slow simmer, rather than a hard boil, lets the connective tissue in the tough rump break down gradually, keeping the meat tender instead of stringy and dry.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, clove, allspice, vinegar, butter, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, clove, allspice, vinegar, butter, flour. 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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