Name: Beef Essence
Ingredients: 1 lb lean beef; 4 teaspoons coarse sea salt; 1 tablespoon water (optional)

Beef Essence

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

1 lb lean beef
4 teaspoons coarse sea salt
1 tablespoon water (optional)

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the beef

Cut the beef into very small pieces.
Sprinkle the salt evenly over the beef.
Place the beef in a jar and cover it with a lid or unporous paper.

Cook and extract

Submerge the jar in a saucepan of boiling water or place it in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 5-6 hours.
After cooking, press the beef to extract the liquid.
Pour off the liquid and remove the fat with porous paper.

Serve

Serve 1 teaspoonful at a time.
For quicker preparation, add 1 tablespoon of water and cook for 2 hours.

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef: Provides the meat whose juices become the stock.
Coarse sea salt: Draws out moisture from the beef and seasons the resulting liquid.

“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.