Why it works: Beef and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,032 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓
Beef Tea
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Remove the fat and skin from the beef and cut it into pieces.
Place the beef in a gallon of water with the bread crust and salt.
Make the broth
Boil until reduced to 2 quarts, then strain.
Weaker tea and serving
For a weaker tea, cut the beef into small pieces and pour scalding water over it.
Cover and let it sit until cool, then pour off the liquid and warm it as needed, seasoning moderately.
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.
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Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,032 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Lean beef
- Provides the meaty flavour and gelatin-rich body that the broth extracts during simmering.
The step that matters
Boil until reduced to 2 quarts, then strain.. A hard, rolling boil emulsifies fat and fine proteins into the liquid, making the broth cloudy. A gentle simmer keeps it clearer while reducing it to concentrate the flavour.
“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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