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Dessert

Beef Tea Custard

A custard made with beef tea, egg whites, yolks, and salt, steamed in a buttered bowl.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and tea work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 417 recipes. Both carry 2-methyl-3-(methyldithio)furan, which smells thiamin, meat. The science ↓

Beef Tea Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg whites and yolks together.

  2. Add the beef tea and salt, mixing well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered bowl.

Steam

  1. Butter a piece of paper and cover the bowl, securing it.

  2. Place the bowl in a saucepan of boiling water.

  3. Cover the saucepan with a tightly-fitting lid and steam for 20 minutes.

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 + teatop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together417 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methyl-3-(methyldithio)furan (thiamin, meat).

  2. Beef + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Tea + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together821 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Add richness and help the custard set smoothly when gently heated.
Egg white
Provides protein that sets as it heats, giving the custard structure.
Beef tea
Supplies the liquid base and savoury flavour of the custard.

The step that matters

Steaming gently under a tight lid. Egg mixtures turn grainy or watery if they boil or cook too fast. Steady, gentle steam with a tight lid sets the custard evenly while keeping it smooth and moist.

“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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