Peptonised Beef-tea
Ingredients
Directions
Make the broth
Mix the minced beef with water and bicarbonate of sodium.
Let it simmer for 1 hour.
Remove from heat and cool to lukewarm.
Digest
Add pancreatic liquor and wrap the mixture to maintain temperature for 3 hours, shaking occasionally.
Decant the liquid and boil for a few seconds to stop digestion.
Season and serve
Season with salt before serving.
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 protein that the enzymes break down into soluble peptides, giving the broth its body and flavour.
- Liquor pancreaticus
- Pancreatic enzymes that digest the meat protein into smaller, more soluble peptides over time.
- Bicarbonate of sodium
- Makes the mixture mildly alkaline, a condition in which pancreatic enzymes work well.
The step that matters
Boil the liquid to stop digestion. Pancreatic enzymes keep breaking down protein until heat denatures them. Boiling the decanted liquid at the right moment ends digestion at the intended point, so skipping or delaying it lets the broth over-digest.
“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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