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Beef a-LA-Mode

A whole beef buttock or clod stewed slowly with bacon, spices, onions, beer, and red wine until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 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 the beef

  1. Prepare the beef by seasoning it with cloves, allspice, parsley, and sweet herbs.

  2. Cut the bacon into strips and mix it with the spices and beef.

  3. Place the beef in a pot and cover it with water.

Stew

  1. Add the chopped onions, garlic, bay leaves, mushrooms, beer, and red wine to the pot.

  2. Season with pepper, Cayenne pepper, and vinegar.

  3. Sprinkle the bread crumbs over the mixture.

  4. Cover the pot and stew for 6 to 8 hours, depending on the size of the beef.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the beef and keep it warm in a deep dish.

  2. Strain the gravy through a sieve, discarding the mushrooms.

  3. Skim off the fat from the gravy and bring it to a boil, seasoning to taste.

  4. Pour the gravy over the beef and serve hot, or slice and serve cold with gravy for a strong jelly.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Allspice + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

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

  5. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long, slow stewing.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that enriches the beef and gravy as it cooks.
Onions
Break down during stewing, adding sweetness and body to the gravy.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the braising liquid.
Beer
Contributes malty bitterness and depth to the braising liquid.
Bread crumbs
Thicken the gravy as they cook into the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Long, covered stewing. Collagen in the tough buttock cut only breaks down into tender gelatin with slow, moist heat over many hours. Stewing too briefly or at a rapid boil leaves the meat tough or dry, so keep the pot covered and the liquid at a gentle simmer.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, clove, parsley, onion, garlic, mushroom, beer):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, clove, parsley, onion, garlic, mushroom, beer. 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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