Name: Beef Tea with Acid
Ingredients: 1½ pounds beef from the round, cut into small pieces; 1½ cups ice, broken small; ½ teaspoon acid or acid phosphate

Beef Tea with Acid

Ingredients

1½ pounds beef from the round, cut into small pieces
1½ cups ice, broken small
½ teaspoon acid or acid phosphate

Directions

Make the beef tea

Combine beef and ice in a deep vessel and let the mixture stand for 12 hours.
Strain the mixture thoroughly through a coarse towel.
Boil the strained liquid quickly for 10 minutes in a porcelain vessel, then let the liquid cool.

Finish and serve

Add ½ teaspoon of acid or acid phosphate to 1 pint of the beef tea.
Serve hot or cold.

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

What each ingredient does

Beef from the round: Provides the flavour and dissolved protein that make up the tea itself.
Ice: Its slow melting draws juices out of the meat while keeping the liquid cool.
Acid or acid phosphate: Adds a sharp, acidic note that brightens the flavour of the 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.