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Ordinary Beef-tea

A simple beef tea made by simmering lean beef with water and bread, seasoned with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,032 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Ordinary Beef-tea

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Finely scrape or cut the beef into small pieces.

  2. Place the beef in a jar with the water and the slice of bread.

Cook and serve

  1. Stew in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

  2. Remove from the oven and serve.

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 + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the meat flavor and protein that give the tea its savory taste.
Water
Extracts flavor from the beef during slow stewing and forms the liquid base.
Bread
Adds body and a little starch that gives the tea a slightly fuller texture.

The step that matters

Stew in a hot oven for 20 minutes. The beef must be held in a covered, moist heat long enough for its flavor to pass into the water. Stopping early leaves the tea weak, while overheating can toughen the meat and make the liquid cloudy.

“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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