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Savotjry Beef Tea

A broth made by simmering shredded gravy beef with water, carrot, turnip, onion, herbs, parsley, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Savotjry Beef Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the fat from the beef and shred the meat or pass it through a mincing machine.

  2. Place the shredded beef, water, and vegetables into a jar.

Simmer

  1. Cover the jar and tie it down with paper.

  2. Put the jar in a saucepan of boiling water and simmer gently for three hours.

Finish

  1. Strain the mixture and remove all grease.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Gravy beef
Provides the meat flavour and dissolved protein that give the tea its savoury body.
Cold water
Extracts flavour and soluble compounds from the beef and vegetables during the long gentle simmer.
Onion
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the broth as it slowly releases its flavour.

The step that matters

Simmer gently in a covered jar. A gentle simmer keeps the liquid from boiling hard, which would make the broth cloudy and greasy. Covering the jar holds in moisture and flavour while the beef slowly releases its juices over three hours.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, turnip, parsley):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, 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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