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Potted Tongue

A preserved beef tongue made by boiling, seasoning, and canning with salted pork and spices.

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 and cover with cold water.

  3. Bring to a boil and simmer for 3 to 4 hours, depending on size.

  4. Once done, remove the skin from the tongues.

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 meat body and gives the dish its rich, savory flavor.
Salted pork
Adds fat and moisture, helping the ground mixture spread and stay tender.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the mixture and helps preserve the meat.
Ground black pepper
Adds sharp, pungent heat that balances the richness of the meat and fat.
Powdered cloves
Contributes warm, aromatic spice notes that deepen the flavor.
Powdered allspice
Adds warm, sweet-spiced aroma that rounds out the seasoning.

The step that matters

Grinding the pork and skin very fine. A very fine grind spreads the fat and connective tissue evenly through the mixture, producing a smooth, spreadable texture rather than a coarse or greasy one.

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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