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Beef a LA Mode

A slow‑cooked beef stew made with ox cheek, cow heel, onions, carrots, and a thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the ox-cheek into pieces and coat them well with flour.

Braise

  1. In a saucepan, heat the dripping and brown the floured meat.

  2. Add the chopped onions, carrots, cow-heel, and cold water to the saucepan.

  3. Season with pepper and salt, cover tightly, and let it simmer for 3 hours.

Thicken the gravy

  1. To thicken the gravy, mix 2 tablespoons of flour with 1 tablespoon of ketchup and 1 tablespoon of water to form a smooth paste.

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

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + meattop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox-cheek
Collagen-rich meat that softens into tender pieces during long, slow simmering.
Cow-heel
Adds gelatin during long simmering, giving the gravy body and a silky mouthfeel.
Flour
Coats the meat for browning and thickens the cooking liquid into gravy.
Onions
Break down during simmering, adding sweetness and savory depth to the gravy.
Carrots
Soften during simmering, adding natural sweetness to the stew.
Dripping
Fat for browning the floured meat, building color and roasted flavor.

The step that matters

Brown the floured meat. Browning the floured meat in hot fat creates the Maillard reaction, producing deep color and savory flavor. Pale, steamed meat gives a flat gravy, so brown in batches without crowding the pan.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, flour, pepper, meat):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, flour, pepper, meat. 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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