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Long Made Beef Tea

A clear beef broth made by simmering shin of beef and veal in a jar, then strained into a jelly-like consistency.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 2 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and veal are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,784 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Long Made Beef Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Remove all skin and marrow from the beef bone.

  2. Cut the beef into small pieces and break up the bone.

  3. Break up the knuckle of veal and add it to the beef.

  4. Place all ingredients in a strong earthen jar.

Cook

  1. Put the jar in a large saucepan of boiling water and cover tightly with stout brown paper.

  2. Boil slowly all day until the jar is filled with meat gravy.

Strain and serve

  1. Strain the mixture; when cold, it will form a strong jelly.

  2. Serve cold in summer or pour hot water over a portion for beef tea in winter.

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Shin of beef
Provides the meat and connective tissue that release flavour and body into the gravy.
Knuckle of veal
Adds gelatin-rich bone and connective tissue that help the liquid set into a jelly when cold.

The step that matters

Boil slowly all day in the sealed jar. A gentle, sustained simmer draws collagen and flavour out of the bones and meat without boiling off the liquid. Covering the jar keeps the contents concentrated, so the gravy becomes rich enough to gel when cooled.

“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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