Beef Tea
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the beef
Remove all fat, skin, and gristle from the beef, leaving only the lean meat.
Cut the beef into very small pieces and place it in a jar.
Pour cold water over the beef, using 1 pint of water for every pound of meat.
Let it soak for 1 hour until the water is red and the meat is white.
Simmer and strain
Cover the jar and place it in a deep saucepan with boiling water halfway up the jar's height.
Simmer for 2 to 3 hours.
Pour out the beef tea.
Skim off any fat from the surface.
Remove remaining fat with clean paper.
Season and serve
Season to taste.
Serve.
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 dissolves into the broth as it simmers slowly.
- Cold water
- Draws out the soluble flavours and colour from the beef during the long soak and simmer.
The step that matters
Removing the fat. Fat that is left in the broth stays on the surface as grease and makes the broth taste heavy. Skimming and blotting with paper removes it and leaves a clearer, cleaner liquid.
“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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