Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Beef Tea
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Mince the beef and place it in an earthen vessel or glass can.
Pour 1 pint of cold water over the meat.
Let it stand for 1 hour on the back of the stove.
Strain and serve
Strain the mixture, squeezing all the juice from the meat.
Place the strained liquid on the fire and bring it to a boil, stirring briskly.
Add salt and pepper to taste, and stir 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
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 + peppertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,971 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Lean beef
- Provides the meat juices that give the tea its flavour and nourishing body.
- Cold water
- Draws out the soluble juices from the minced meat during the standing period.
The step that matters
Let it stand for 1 hour on the back of the stove. Gentle warmth without boiling lets the meat release its juices into the water. Boiling the meat at this stage would toughen its proteins and trap the juice inside.
“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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