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Tongue De Terrapin

A braised beef tongue served with tomatoes, sherry, butter, and garnished with hard‑boiled eggs, lemon, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Tongue De Terrapin

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the tongue

  1. Boil the beef tongue until thoroughly done.

  2. Cut the large part of the tongue on one side and fill it with plain stuffing.

Bake

  1. Place the tongue in a pan and pour 1 quart of tomatoes over it.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt and cayenne pepper, then add 1 cup of sherry.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 1 hour.

  4. Just before serving, add a large spoonful of butter.

Serve

  1. Serve with sliced hard boiled eggs and lemon, garnished with parsley.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 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
Forms the main meat and is cooked until fully tender before baking.
Plain stuffing
Fills the cut pocket in the tongue, adding bulk and absorbing the cooking juices.
Tomatoes
Provide acidity and liquid that moisten the tongue during slow baking.
Sherry
Adds liquid and a sweet, aromatic flavour to the braising sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy finish to the sauce just before serving.

The step that matters

Boil the beef tongue until thoroughly done. Beef tongue is tough connective tissue, and long cooking breaks down collagen into gelatin, which makes the meat tender. Undercooked tongue stays chewy and is hard to slice neatly.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, sherry, butter, egg, lemon, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, sherry, butter, egg, lemon, parsley. 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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