Beef Tea
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the beef
Wipe the meat with a damp cloth to ensure it is clean.
Using a sharp knife, scrape or shred the beef as finely as possible.
Remove any pieces of fat and skin.
Weigh the shredded beef and place it in a strong jar or basin.
Steep and cover
Add the salt and cold water, then stir well with a fork.
Cover the jar with a double piece of greased white paper, tied down.
Alternatively, use a paste of flour and water to cover the jar.
For best results, use a beef tea extractor to cook the beef tea without boiling.
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
What each ingredient does
- Lean beef
- Provides the meat flavour and the savoury body of the tea once its juices are released into the water.
- Cold water
- Draws the juices out of the finely shredded meat gently, without toughening its protein.
The step that matters
Adding the cold water and steeping without boiling. Boiling toughens meat proteins and makes the tea cloudy and greasy. Starting in cold water lets the juices dissolve gradually, which gives a clearer, more flavourful tea.
“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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