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To Clarify Beef Drippings

A method for clarifying drippings from cooked beef or veal by boiling with a potato, then filtering and storing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,052 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

To Clarify Beef Drippings

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Clarify the drippings

  1. Put the drippings into a basin.

  2. Slice the raw potato and add it to the basin.

  3. Allow the mixture to boil until the potato browns, removing impurities.

  4. Remove the mixture from heat and let it cool.

  5. Drain off the sediment.

  6. Store the clarified drippings in basins or small jars in a cool place.

  7. To use, mix the clarified drippings with an equal amount of butter for frying and basting meats.

Roast the veal

  1. Prepare a roast of veal as usual, leaving it in the kidney and securing it with twine.

  2. Place the roast in a dripping pan with the thick side down.

  3. Roast the roast in a hot oven.

  4. Reduce the heat to moderate after the roast starts roasting.

  5. After 30 minutes, add hot water to the pan.

  6. Baste the roast often.

  7. After another 30 minutes, turn the roast over.

  8. Dredge the roast lightly with flour.

  9. Baste the roast with melted butter.

  10. Bake a 4 to 5-pound roast for about 2 hours.

  11. Remove the twine before serving.

Make the gravy

  1. For gravy, skim off some fat.

  2. Dredge the fat in flour.

  3. Stir the mixture until brown.

  4. Add hot water if needed.

  5. Boil the gravy.

  6. Stir in sweet herbs.

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 + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Potato + peastop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,016 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Peas + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,005 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Drippings
Provide concentrated beef fat and flavour for frying, basting and gravy.
Flour
Dredged on the roast and fat to brown and thicken the gravy.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the roast and drippings brown while basting.
Raw potato
Browns as it boils, helping to draw out impurities from the drippings.

The step that matters

Drain off the sediment after cooling. Sediment left in the fat can burn during frying or basting and cloud the clarified drippings, so it must be fully separated once the fat has cooled.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, potato, butter, flour, peas, sauce):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, potato, butter, flour, peas, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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