Beef Tea
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the gravy beef into very fine pieces, removing all skin and fat.
Place the meat in a saucepan with 1½ cups of cold water, ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt, and 2-3 whole peppercorns if desired.
Bring the saucepan to a boil over heat.
Simmer and strain
Reduce the heat and let it simmer gently for 5-6 hours, keeping the lid on and ensuring it doesn't reduce too much.
Strain the beef tea through a coarse cloth into a basin and let it cool.
Remove all fat from the beef tea before reheating for use.
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 gelatin-rich body that gives the broth its richness.
- Cold water
- Extracts flavour and collagen from the meat as it slowly simmers.
The step that matters
Simmer gently with the lid on. A gentle simmer extracts flavour and collagen slowly while keeping the broth clear. A hard boil emulsifies fat into the liquid and cloudies it, and an uncovered pot reduces too much, so the lid and low heat matter.
“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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