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 ↓
Beef Tea
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the beef
Cut the beef into very small pieces.
Place the beef in a jelly jar and cover with a lid.
Extract and serve
Heat in the oven or on the hob for about 1.5 hours until all the juice is released.
Pour off the juice and mix it with boiling water to your desired strength.
Season with pepper and coarse sea 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
- Beef
- Supplies the meat juices that give the tea its flavour and body.
- Boiling water
- Dilutes the extracted juice to the strength you prefer.
The step that matters
Heating until the juice is released. Gentle, prolonged heat draws juice out of the meat. High heat tightens the muscle fibres and squeezes out less liquid, so the tea becomes weaker and the meat tougher.
“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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