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To Boil Smoked Tongue

A boiled smoked tongue prepared with bay leaves, pepper, cloves, and onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove 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 ↓

To Boil Smoked Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the tongue and soak it in cold water overnight if it is dried out.

  2. Place the tongue in a kettle with cold water and add the seasonings.

Cook

  1. Simmer slowly for 2 to 4 hours until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from the brine, peel off the outer skin, and cut off the root.

  2. Let it cool in the brine before slicing or serving hot with sweet and sour sauce.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. 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

Smoked tongue
Is the main cut; slow simmering turns its tough muscle tender and flavourful.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly for 2 to 4 hours until tender. A gentle simmer lets connective tissue break down slowly, giving tender meat. A hard boil toughens the meat and can make it fall apart unevenly.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, clove. 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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