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Soup

Beef Tea

A clear beef broth made by simmering beef, calf's feet, veal, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Beef Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Pour boiling water over the finely cut beef to raise the scum.

  2. Skim off the scum, strain the liquid, and let it settle.

  3. Pour off the clear liquid for use.

Make the broth

  1. In a pot, boil the calf's feet, veal, beef, crust, mace, nutmeg, and salt in 3 quarts of water.

  2. Reduce the mixture to half, then strain and remove the fat.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  3. Beef + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,495 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Veal + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,761 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Veal + nutmegtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,542 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the main meaty flavor and savory body to the broth.
Calf's feet
Release gelatin during long simmering, giving the broth body and a silky mouthfeel.
Veal
Adds gelatin and mild meaty flavor to the simmered broth.

The step that matters

Reducing the mixture to half. Simmering concentrates flavor and gelatin, but boiling too hard can cloud the broth. Reducing gently and then straining removes solids and fat for a clearer result.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, veal, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, veal, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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