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Fresh Tongue

A braised beef tongue served with a pickled mushroom and pepper sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fresh Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the tongue

  1. Wash the beef tongue well.

  2. In a saucepan, brown the soup vegetables, herbs, whole spices, and peppercorns in butter.

  3. Add the tongue to the saucepan and pour over the hot water, claret, tomato sauce, and broth.

  4. Season with salt and pepper, cover, and bring to a boil.

Braise and finish

  1. Place in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 2 hours, turning occasionally.

  2. Remove the tongue, skin it, trim it, and keep it hot.

  3. Reduce the sauce on the stove to 1 pint, strain it, and add sliced pickles, chopped mushrooms, chopped Spanish peppers, and minced ham.

  4. Boil for 5 minutes, skim, pour 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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Thyme + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef tongue
Main protein; slow braising makes the dense meat tender enough to slice.
Claret (red wine)
Adds acidity and depth to the braising liquid, which becomes the sauce.
Tomato sauce
Adds acidity, body and savoury flavour to the reduced sauce.
Strong broth
Supplies savoury depth and body to the braising liquid.
Butter
Browns the vegetables and aromatics, building flavour before the liquid is added.
Mushrooms
Add earthy savouriness and some moisture to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Reducing the sauce to 1 pint before adding the garnishes. Reduction concentrates the flavour and thickens the liquid. Too little reduction leaves a thin sauce, while too much makes it salty and sticky once the ham and pickles are added.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, celery, thyme, clove, allspice, butter):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, celery, thyme, clove, allspice, butter. 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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