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Beef Tea

A clear broth made by boiling lean beef until the meat turns light-colored and the juice is extracted, then seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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

Make the broth

  1. Place the beef in a glass jar without water.

  2. Cover the jar tightly and set it in a pot of cold water.

  3. Gradually heat the pot to a boil and maintain heat for 3 to 4 hours.

  4. The meat should become light-colored and the juice fully extracted.

Season

  1. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

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 + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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 and juices that are extracted to make the broth's flavor.

The step that matters

Maintaining gentle heat over 3 to 4 hours. Heating the pot gradually and then holding it at a steady heat lets the meat release its juices slowly. Rapid, aggressive boiling can toughen the meat and cloud the liquid, so keeping the heat controlled matters for a clear, well-flavored broth.

“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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