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To Clarify Beef Drippings

A method to clarify drippings from cooked beef or veal by boiling a raw potato in them.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

To Clarify Beef Drippings

Ingredients

Directions

Clarify the drippings

  1. Place the drippings in a basin.

  2. Slice the raw potato into the drippings.

  3. Boil until the potato browns, which removes impurities.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool.

  5. Drain off the sediment that settles at the bottom.

Store and use

  1. Transfer to basins or small jars and store in a cool place for future use.

  2. Mix with an equal amount of butter for frying and basting meats, except game and poultry.

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. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Drippings from cooked beef or veal
Supply the fat that is clarified and reused for frying and basting.
Raw potato
Browns as it boils, helping draw out impurities from the fat.
Butter
Optional; mixed in equal amount to add flavour and richness for frying and basting.

The step that matters

Boil until the potato browns. Boiling must go long enough for the potato to brown, since that signals water has cooked off and impurities have been drawn out. Stopping early leaves the fat cloudy and more likely to spoil in storage.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter):

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Chivefits less well
  4. Tomatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter. 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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