Beef Tea
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the gravy beef into very fine pieces, removing all the skin.
Simmer
Place the meat in a saucepan with 1½ cups of cold water, salt, and peppercorns if using.
Bring the saucepan to a boil, then reduce the heat to simmer gently for 5-6 hours, keeping the lid on.
Strain and finish
After simmering, 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 protein that dissolve into the broth during long simmering.
- Cold water
- Acts as the cooking liquid that slowly extracts flavour from the meat.
The step that matters
Bring to a boil, then reduce to a gentle simmer. A rolling boil makes the broth cloudy and can toughen the meat, while a gentle simmer draws out flavour slowly and keeps the liquid clear.
“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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