Name: A LA Mode
Ingredients: 6 to 12 pounds of beef; ½ pound of salt pork; ½ calf's foot or veal bone (for broth)

Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 5,669 recipes mention both. Both carry 3-ethylphenol, which smells must. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

6 to 12 pounds of beef
½ pound of salt pork
½ calf's foot or veal bone (for broth)

Directions

Lard the beef using a flat steel larding needle.
Cut the salt pork into square strips to fit the needle.
Insert the needle with the pork through the grain of the meat, leaving some pork sticking out.
Lard one side first, then the other, ensuring the pork is evenly distributed.
Choose a saucepan that fits the meat without bending it, preferably a crockery pan.
Add the calf's foot or veal bone to the saucepan for flavor.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together5,669 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-ethylphenol (must).
Pork + vealtop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together4,919 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Beef + vealtop 4% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together3,784 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).