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Peptonized Beef Broth

A beef broth made by peptonizing the meat with peptonizing powder and simmering.

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 ↓

Peptonized Beef Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beef

  1. Wipe and chop the lean beef.

  2. In a pot, add the chopped beef and 4 cups of water. Cook over gentle heat until it boils, stirring constantly.

  3. Pour off the liquid and rub the meat into a paste. Add this paste back to the liquid.

Peptonize and finish

  1. In a jar, mix the peptonizing powder with the remaining water thoroughly.

  2. Combine the broth with the peptonizing mixture and shake well.

  3. Set aside in a warm place (115°F) for 3 hours.

  4. After 3 hours, bring the mixture to a boiling point, then strain.

  5. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the meat flavor and the protein that the powder breaks down into the broth.
Fairchild’s peptonizing powder
Enzymes break down the beef protein into smaller peptides, giving the broth its nutrient-rich character.

The step that matters

Holding the mixture warm for 3 hours. The enzymes in the peptonizing powder work only within a limited warm range. Holding the mixture at the stated temperature for the full time lets them break down the protein; too hot or too cold and the process stalls or the enzymes are destroyed.

“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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