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Boiled Beef Tongue

A boiled beef tongue served with a vinegar and sugar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Boiled Beef Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the tongue

  1. Wash the fresh tongue and cover it with water in a pot.

  2. Add 1 pint of coarse sea salt and 1 small red pepper.

  3. Add more water as it evaporates to keep the tongue nearly covered until it can be easily pierced with a fork.

  4. Remove the tongue from the pot.

  5. Peel the tongue if you want to use it soon; otherwise, let it cool unpeeled.

  6. If using salt tongues, soak them overnight and omit the salt when boiling.

Make the sauce

  1. For a sauce, after peeling, place the tongue in a saucepan with 1 cup of water, ½ cup vinegar, and 4 tablespoons sugar, and cook until the liquid evaporates.

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).

  2. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  5. Beef + saucetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,650 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef tongue
Is the main cut, becoming tender as it simmers slowly in water.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the sauce, balancing the acidity of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Keeping the tongue covered while it cooks. As water evaporates, exposed meat can dry and toughen. Topping up the water keeps the tongue submerged so it cooks evenly and becomes tender enough to pierce easily with a fork.

“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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