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Another Beef Tea

A simple beef broth made by simmering diced beef with salt, flour, pepper, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Another Beef Tea

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef into small dice.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the beef, salt, flour, and pepper.

  3. Pour in the cold water and let it sit for 1-2 hours.

Simmer and serve

  1. Place the saucepan on the fire and bring it slowly to a boil.

  2. Boil gently for 1 hour, adding hot water if it reduces too much.

  3. Skim off any fat before serving.

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 + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Beef and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Supplies the meaty flavor and body as its juices and collagen release into the water.
Flour
Lightly thickens the broth so it feels fuller in the mouth.

The step that matters

Bring the saucepan to a boil slowly, then keep it at a gentle boil. Heating slowly lets the beef release its flavor gradually into the cold water. A hard, rapid boil breaks up the fat and proteins into the liquid, making the tea cloudy and greasy and toughening the meat.

“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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