Beef Tea
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the beef
Chop or mince the beef finely.
Place the beef in an earthen jar with a lid.
Add cold water and let it sit for 1 hour, stirring and pressing the meat occasionally.
Cook
Put the jar in a saucepan with enough water to reach nearly to the lid, but not above it.
Keep the water at a gentle boil for 3 hours, adding water as needed to replace evaporation.
Strain and settle
Remove the jar and drain the beef tea from the meat.
Press the meat through a coarse straining cloth to extract all liquid.
Let the beef tea stand until clear, with sediment settling at the bottom.
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
- Gravy beef
- Provides the meat flavour and dissolved protein that make up the tea.
- Cold water
- Slowly draws juices out of the meat, and carries them into the finished tea.
The step that matters
Keep the water at a gentle boil, not a hard boil. A gentle heat extracts flavour from the meat without toughening or clouding the liquid. Keep the jar from sitting above the water line so the tea is heated gently and evenly.
“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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