Name: A Simple Way of Making Beef Tea
Ingredients: 1 pound gravy beef, cut into dice-sized pieces; 1 pint water; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 2 cloves; 2 allspice berries; small piece of crust from bread

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

A Simple Way of Making Beef Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Combine the beef, water, salt, cloves, and allspice in a pot.
Bring to a boil and simmer for 1 hour.
Toast a small piece of bread crust until golden.
Add the toasted crust to the pot.
Strain the mixture through a clean sieve into a bowl.

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.

Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,032 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Clove + breadtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,129 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Beef + clovetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,462 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Beef + allspicetop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,940 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

Gravy beef: Provides the main flavour and savoury body as it simmers into the liquid.
Bread crust: Toasting adds browned, roasted aroma that deepens the flavour of the broth.