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Beef Tea

A clear broth made by simmering beef, celery, bay leaf, parsley, cloves, and salt in cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beef Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cover the meat with cold water in a pot.

  2. Add celery, bay leaf, parsley, and cloves.

  3. Soak for 2 hours, stirring frequently.

Heat and strain

  1. Heat over low heat, stirring until steaming; do not boil.

  2. Strain through a colander or fine sieve.

Season and serve

  1. Remove any floating fat before serving.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt 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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  3. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Meat + celerytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,880 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Meat + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,040 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Finely chopped meat
Releases flavour and gelatin into the water as it slowly soaks and heats.
Cold water
Acts as the liquid that extracts flavour from the meat during gentle heating.
Celery
Adds a mild, savoury vegetable aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Heat over low heat without boiling. Boiling makes the broth cloudy and can emulsify fat into it, while gentle steaming keeps the liquid clear and easier to skim.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, celery, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, celery, parsley. 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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