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Sheeps' Tongues in Tomato Sauce

Sheeps' tongues simmered in tomato sauce with vegetables and herbs, then served hot with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Sheeps' Tongues in Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the tongues

  1. Wash the tongues in cold water and place them in a saucepan.

  2. Cover with cold water or stock and bring to a boil, skimming well.

  3. If using fresh tongues, add 2 teaspoons of salt; if corned, skip this step.

  4. Add the vegetables and peppercorns, then simmer gently for 2 hours.

  5. Remove the tongues, plunge them into cold water, and remove the skin.

  6. Trim the tongues and cut them in half.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Prepare the tomato sauce using the reserved cooking liquid if it's not too salty.

  2. Place the tongues in the sauce and simmer for another hour.

  3. Serve hot, garnished with chopped 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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Tomato + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Tomato + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 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

Sheep tongues
Main protein; long gentle simmering makes the meat tender and easy to peel.
Tomato sauce
Provides acidity and moisture, and coats the tongues during the final simmer.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the cooking liquid that later flavours the sauce.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and aroma to the cooking liquid.
Peppercorns
Add sharp aromatic heat to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Skimming the boil and gentle simmer. Skimming removes foam and impurities that would cloud the liquid and taint flavour. A gentle simmer, rather than a rolling boil, keeps the meat tender rather than tough and stringy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, sauce, thyme, carrot, parsley):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sauce, thyme, carrot, 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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