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Pickled Ox-palates

Pickled ox palates are cured in a brine of salt, water, spices, vinegar, wine, and salad oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,400 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Pickled Ox-palates

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the palates

  1. Clean the palates with a brush in salt and water, then dry them with a cloth.

  2. Place the palates in a saucepan, cover with salt and water, and bring to a boil.

  3. Skim the surface, then add the white peppercorns, cloves, mace, and bay leaves.

  4. Boil gently for about 5 hours until tender, then remove, peel, and let cool.

Pickle and store

  1. Cut the palates into 1‑inch square pieces and place in clean jars with additional bay leaves.

  2. Strain the boiling liquid into another saucepan, add the white wine vinegar and foreign white wine, and simmer for 5 minutes.

  3. Remove any scum, let cool, and pour over the palates to cover completely.

  4. Top with salad oil, seal the jars with bladder and leather, and store in a cool place.

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 + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

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

  3. Clove + white winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,715 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Clove + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mace + white winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,329 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox palates
Main protein; boiling makes them tender enough to cut and eat after pickling.
White wine vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the pickling liquid its sharp, preserving character.
Foreign white wine
Adds body and mild acidity to the pickling liquid, contributing to its flavour.
Salad oil
Forms a layer over the pickle that limits contact with air.

The step that matters

Boil gently until tender, then cool before pickling. Boiling too hard can toughen and break up the palates, while gentle simmering softens the connective tissue slowly. Cooling before pouring the vinegar mixture over them prevents the cooked meat from being pickled while still hot and keeps the texture intact.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, white wine, vinegar):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, white wine, vinegar. 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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