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Soup

Beef Tea

A clear beef broth made by simmering beef in cold water, then skimming grease and seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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

Prepare the beef

  1. Cut the beef into small pieces, removing all fat and stringy parts.

  2. Place the beef in a thick bottle or a tin boiler.

Extract the juices

  1. Cover tightly and set the container in a pot of cold water.

  2. Heat the water gradually for about three hours to extract the juices.

  3. Pour the mixture into a bowl and skim off any grease.

  4. For easier skimming, let it cool first if time allows.

  5. Alternatively, for the second method, add 1 pint of cold water to each pound of beef and let it stand for 2 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Heat the mixture on the back of the stove until just below boiling, then add salt and pepper to taste.

  2. Strain before serving.

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

Fresh beef
Supplies the main meaty flavor, and its connective tissue turns into gelatin that gives the broth body.

The step that matters

Heat gradually and stop below boiling. Boiling churns the fat and proteins into the liquid, which clouds the broth and can give it a greasy taste. Gentle, slow heating keeps it clear and lets the juices come out cleanly.

“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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