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Potted Tongue

A preserved tongue dish made by boiling, skinning, and seasoning with spices, then canned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Potted Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tongue

  1. Soak the tongues in cold water for 12 hours.

  2. Place the tongues in a kettle, cover with cold water, and bring to a boil.

  3. Simmer for 3 to 4 hours, depending on size.

  4. Once done, remove the tongues and skin them.

Make the potted mixture

  1. Cook the pork and skin, then grind very fine.

  2. Mix the ground pork with the other ingredients.

  3. Place the mixture in cans, cap them, and process as you would beef.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + coriandertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Pepper + coriandertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,949 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Salted tongue
Forms the main body of the potted meat, giving it its rich, meaty texture.
Salted pork
Adds fat and moisture, helping the ground mixture stay soft and spreadable.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the meat and helps draw out moisture and preserve it.
Ground black pepper
Provides sharp, warm heat that balances the richness of the meat.
Powdered cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour that deepens the seasoning.
Powdered allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic spice notes that round out the seasoning.

The step that matters

Simmer the tongue until tender. Tongue is a dense, connective-tissue-rich muscle. Simmering gently for the full time breaks down collagen so the meat becomes tender and easy to skin and grind. Stopping early leaves it tough.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, pepper, clove, allspice, coriander):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, clove, allspice, coriander. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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