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Beef a LA Mode

A beef stew with vegetables, browned and cooked with vinegar, flour, and optional claret.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Beef a LA Mode

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Wipe the beef with fat.

  2. Sprinkle the beef with salt.

  3. Pour vinegar over the beef.

  4. Let the beef stand for several hours.

Brown and braise

  1. Cut up the vegetables and place them on top of the beef.

  2. Pour off the vinegar.

  3. Place the beef in a pot with a little butter or fat.

  4. Fry the beef on both sides until browned.

  5. Add brown flour, water, and the vegetables to the pot.

  6. Cook for twenty minutes per pound of beef.

  7. Optionally, add ½ cup of claret.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Tomato + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Round beef
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender during slow, moist cooking.
Vinegar
Acidic marinade that softens the meat's surface before cooking.
Brown flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy as it simmers.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the braising liquid as they soften.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture that helps build the sauce's flavor.
Onion
Adds aromatic savory flavor to the braising liquid as it cooks down.

The step that matters

Frying the beef until well browned. Browning the surface through the Maillard reaction builds deep savory flavor that carries into the sauce. Pale, under-browned meat gives a flat-tasting gravy.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, tomato, carrot, turnip, onion, pepper, celery):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, tomato, carrot, turnip, onion, pepper, celery. 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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