Why it works: Beef and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,370 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Beef Tea No 1
Ingredients
Directions
Make the beef tea
Combine the chopped beef and cold water in a pot.
Steep for 2 hours.
Simmer on the stove for 2 hours without boiling.
Strain the mixture and press all the juice out of the beef.
Serve
When ready to serve, heat the beef tea and season with salt and celery or bay leaf.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Beef + celerytop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,370 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Lean beef
- Provides the meaty flavour and the juices that make up the tea.
- Cold water
- Draws out the juices from the beef slowly, without toughening its proteins.
The step that matters
Simmer without boiling. Boiling makes the beef proteins seize and toughen and can cloud the liquid, so the tea stays clear and tender-tasting only when it is kept at a gentle simmer.
“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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