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Beef a LA Mode

A slow‑cooked beef stew with onions, carrot, stock, and optional claret, finished with a brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Beef a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Trim the beef.

  2. Bone the beef.

  3. Lard the beef.

  4. Combine the beef with claret (if using), lemon juice, chopped onion, clove, salt, pepper, and bouquet-garni.

  5. Marinate for 2 hours, basting frequently.

  6. Drain the beef.

Brown and make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  2. Fry the beef until browned.

  3. Lightly fry the button onions at the same time.

  4. Remove the beef and onions from the stewpan.

  5. Add flour to the pan.

  6. Fry until it turns nut-brown.

  7. Stir in the stock and the marble.

  8. Bring to a boil.

  9. Return the beef and onions to the pan.

  10. Season to taste.

  11. Add the sliced carrot.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook gently for 2 to 3 hours.

  2. Stir and skim occasionally.

  3. Place the beef on a hot dish.

  4. Strain the sauce over it.

  5. Garnish with groups of onions and carrot.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  4. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Rump of beef
Main meat that becomes tender during the long, gentle simmer.
Butter
Fat for frying that carries flavour and helps browning of the beef and onions.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a sauce and, fried to nut-brown, adds colour and toasty flavour.
Stock
Liquid that forms the body of the sauce and braises the beef.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and body to the sauce as it cooks.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the marinade and balances the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the flour until nut-brown. Flour must cook in the hot fat until it darkens; undercooked flour leaves a raw, pasty taste, while over-browned flour turns bitter and dark. Stirring keeps it from scorching.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, flour, carrot, parsley, thyme, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, flour, carrot, parsley, thyme, lemon. 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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