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To Clarify Beef Drippings

A method for clarifying beef or veal drippings by boiling a raw potato to remove impurities.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

To Clarify Beef Drippings

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Clarify the drippings

  1. Place the drippings in a basin.

  2. Add the raw potato and bring to a boil.

  3. Boil until the potato browns, which will remove impurities.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool.

  5. Drain the clarified drippings from the sediment at the bottom.

Store and use

  1. Store in small jars in a cool place for future use.

  2. For frying and basting, mix with an equal amount of butter, except for game and poultry.

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

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.

  1. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef or veal drippings
Provides the rendered fat that is clarified and carries the flavour for frying and basting.
Raw potato
As it browns while boiling, it helps draw out impurities that settle as sediment.
Butter
Optional; mixed in for frying and basting to add richness and flavour.

The step that matters

Boil until the potato browns. The potato must brown fully to release impurities; under-browning leaves them in the fat, while over-boiling can scorch the drippings and darken their flavour.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter):

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Onionfits about as well
  3. Chivefits less well
  4. Tomatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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