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Jellied Tongue

A chilled tongue served in a gelatinous brown gravy with burnt sugar and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Jellied Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in ½ cup of water.

  2. Combine the brown gravy, liquor, burnt sugar, and vinegar in a bowl.

  3. Add the dissolved gelatine and mix well.

  4. Stir in the boiling water and strain the mixture.

  5. Let the jelly cook and begin to thicken.

Assemble and set

  1. Slice the tongue into pieces.

  2. Wet a mold.

  3. Pour a little jelly in the bottom.

  4. Add a layer of tongue.

  5. Add more jelly.

  6. Repeat until the mold is full.

  7. Cover the mold and set it on ice.

  8. Garnish with edible flowers 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. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm jelly that holds the tongue in layers.
Tongue
Provides the meat that is suspended in the set jelly.
Brown gravy
Adds savoury depth and colour to the jelly.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the rich jelly.
Burnt sugar
Adds a deep, slightly bitter caramel flavour and darker colour.

The step that matters

Let the jelly cook and begin to thicken. The jelly must be thick enough to hold its layers but not fully set before the tongue is added. If it is too thin, the layers will mix; if it sets too early in the pan, it will not pour evenly into the mold.

“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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