Why it works: Beef and tea work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 417 recipes. Both carry 2-methyl-3-(methyldithio)furan, which smells thiamin, meat. The science ↓
Clarified Beef Tea
Ingredients
Directions
Beat the egg white with the cold water until well combined.
Add the beef tea and bring the mixture to a boil.
Season with salt to taste.
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.
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Beef + teatop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together417 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methyl-3-(methyldithio)furan (thiamin, meat).
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Egg + beeftop 31% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,305 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + teatop 31% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together821 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg white
- Helps clarify the beef tea by binding fine particles as it heats, leaving a clearer broth.
The step that matters
Bringing the mixture to a boil. Once the egg white is added, the mixture should be heated gently and allowed to rise, then settle. Boiling too vigorously can break up the egg white raft, so it may not trap impurities and the tea will stay cloudy.
“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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