Skip to main content
Main

To Preserve Dripping

A method for preserving beef dripping by repeated boiling and straining with spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

To Preserve Dripping

Ingredients

Directions

Clarify the dripping

  1. Boil the beef dripping in soft water and strain it into a pan.

  2. Let the liquid stand until cold.

  3. Remove the hard fat and scrape off the gravy.

  4. Repeat this process eight times.

Preserve and store

  1. Put the clean fat into a large saucepan with bay leaves, cloves, salt, and pepper.

  2. Melt the fat.

  3. Strain the melted fat through a sieve into a stone pot.

  4. Cover the pot once it is cold.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beef + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef dripping
Forms the fat that is purified, then sets firm and keeps the preserved product rich.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and helps preserve the fat against spoilage.

The step that matters

Repeat the boiling and cooling process eight times. Each boil dissolves gravy and water into the liquid, and each cooling lets clean fat rise and harden. Skipping cycles leaves residual water and solids, which can spoil the preserved fat.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Rosemaryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes