Beef Tea
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the broth
Cut the gravy beef into very fine pieces, removing all skin and fat.
Place the meat in a saucepan with 1½ pints of cold water, salt, and peppercorns if using.
Bring the saucepan to a boil over heat.
Simmer and strain
Reduce the heat and let it simmer gently for 5-6 hours, keeping the lid on.
After simmering, strain the beef tea through a coarse cloth into a basin and let it cool.
Remove all fat from the beef tea before reheating for use.
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
- Gravy beef
- Provides the meat flavour and gelatin that give the broth body as it simmers.
- Cold water
- Acts as the solvent that slowly draws flavour and richness out of the meat.
The step that matters
Simmer gently with the lid on. A rolling boil emulsifies fat into the liquid and makes the broth cloudy, while gentle heat extracts flavour cleanly. Keeping the lid on limits evaporation so the liquid stays at its volume.
“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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