Skip to main content
Main

The Olive and Olive Oil

Beef tongue served with olives, olive oil, and a vinegar-summer savory mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and summer savory work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 671 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

The Olive and Olive Oil

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the chili peppers in water until softened.

Cook the tongue

  1. Boil the beef tongue until tender, then slice it thinly.

Make the dressing

  1. In a bowl, combine the vinegar (or lemon juice and vinegar), summer savory, and chopped onion.

  2. Add salt and olive oil to the mixture, adjusting to your taste.

Serve

  1. Serve the sliced tongue topped with olives and the prepared mixture.

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. Pepper + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Summer savory + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together299 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Olive + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef tongue
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long boiling.
Olives
Add salty, briny flavour that contrasts with the rich meat.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dish and cuts the richness of the meat.
Olive oil
Adds fat and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the dressing.
Dry chili peppers
Add heat and pepper flavour once softened in water.

The step that matters

Boil the beef tongue until tender. Tongue is a tough, fibrous muscle that needs a long, gentle simmer to break down connective tissue. Stopping early leaves the slices chewy, so test for tenderness before slicing.

Swap the summer savory

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Summer savorythe original

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

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes