Why it works: Sugar and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 31% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,581 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Potted Tongue
Ingredients
Directions
Cure
Rub the ox tongue with moist sugar and saltpetre.
Let it sit for four to five days.
Cook
Boil the tongue in water enriched with wine, spices, and bruised bay leaves until tender.
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.
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Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together9,581 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Ox tongue
- Main meat that becomes tender and succulent through curing and slow boiling.
- Moist sugar
- Balances the salt in the cure and adds sweetness and moisture to the meat.
- Saltpetre
- Preserves the meat and gives cured meat its characteristic pink colour.
- Wine
- Adds acidity and depth to the cooking liquor that flavours the tongue.
- Bay leaves
- Contribute a fragrant herbal aroma to the cooking liquid and the meat.
The step that matters
Letting the tongue cure for four to five days. Salt and saltpetre must penetrate the thick muscle over time. Rushing this leaves the centre under-cured, uneven in flavour, and less preserved.
“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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