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 ↓
Liebig’s Beef-tea
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the beef into small pieces like minced meat.
Mix the beef with an equal weight of water in an earthen vessel.
Heat the mixture until it begins to boil, then remove from heat after boiling for 1-2 minutes.
Strain and season
Strain the liquid through a towel.
Season the strained liquid with pepper and salt to taste.
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.
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Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 meaty flavour and the dissolved protein that gives the tea its body.
- Water
- Draws the juices and flavour out of the beef into the liquid.
The step that matters
Remove from heat after 1-2 minutes of boiling. Prolonged boiling toughens the meat's proteins and makes the liquid cloudy and greasy, so it should be taken off the heat promptly.
“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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