Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Spiced Tongue
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Mix sugar, saltpetre, and ground cloves; rub into the tongue.
Prepare a brine with salt and water; submerge the tongue and weigh it down.
Let it brine for two weeks.
After two weeks, wash the tongue and dry it with a cloth.
Make a thin paste with flour and water; wrap the tongue in it.
Place the wrapped tongue in a pan; baste with lard and water.
Bake at 300°F (150°C) until done; remove the paste and skin before serving.
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.
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Clove + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,671 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together17,182 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar and clove barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 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
Swap the clove
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour):
- Jalapenofits better
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Clovethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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