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Beef Tea Custard

A custard made by whisking eggs with hot beef broth, seasoned with salt and pepper, baked in a water bath.

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 Custard

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Scald the beef tea.

  2. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

Make the custard

  1. Pour the hot beef tea onto the beaten eggs.

  2. Taste and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered cup.

Bake

  1. Bake in a pan of hot water at 400°F (200°C) for about 30 minutes.

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).

  2. Beef + teatop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together417 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methyl-3-(methyldithio)furan (thiamin, meat).

  3. Tea + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Egg + beeftop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + teatop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together821 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard by proteins coagulating into a tender, sliceable structure when heated.
Beef tea
Supplies the liquid that gives the custard its moisture and savory beef flavor.

The step that matters

Bake in a pan of hot water. Egg proteins set gently and evenly in a water bath. Direct, fierce heat can overcook the edges and make the custard curdled, grainy, or rubbery.

“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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