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Boiled Fresh Beef Tongue

A boiled beef tongue served with a browned butter gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Boiled Fresh Beef Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tongue

  1. Soak the tongue in cold water for 1 hour, then rinse in fresh cold water.

  2. Place the tongue in a pot of cold water to cover it, add salt and bay leaves, and cover the pot.

  3. Boil slowly, turning the tongue once or twice, and remove scum as it rises.

  4. Cook until tender enough for a broom straw to penetrate easily, replenishing with boiling water if necessary.

  5. Once cool enough to handle, carefully peel off the thick skin.

Braise and finish

  1. Brown the butter or dripping in a pot, moving it quickly to prevent burning.

  2. Add the tongue and brown both sides slightly.

  3. Pour in stock or gravy, add cloves, onions, and season with pepper and salt.

  4. Cover and simmer for 30-45 minutes.

  5. Remove the tongue, keep warm, and thicken the gravy with blended browned flour.

  6. Boil the gravy once, pour it over the tongue, and serve.

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 + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Clove + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef tongue
Main meat that becomes tender through long slow boiling and then braising.
Butter or beef dripping
Browns the tongue's surface and adds richness to the finished gravy.
Stock or gravy
Forms the braising liquid that keeps the meat moist and flavours the sauce.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth to the braising liquid and gravy.
Browned flour (in the method)
Thickens the gravy so it coats the tongue.

The step that matters

Brown the butter or dripping quickly. Fat that gets too hot burns and turns bitter, and burnt flavour carries into the gravy. Keeping the fat moving and the heat controlled gives an even golden colour and a clean, nutty taste.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, onion, pepper):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, onion, pepper. 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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