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Spiced Tongue

A preserved tongue seasoned with salt, saltpetre, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, lemon peel, ginger, thyme, summer savory, suet, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 214 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Spiced Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Cure and spice

  1. Cure the tongue for 2 days with salt and saltpetre.

  2. Bore holes in the tongue with a steel needle and stuff with the spice mixture.

  3. Press the tongue in a dish under a heavy weight for 24 hours.

Shape and boil

  1. Add water to the brine and boil until the skin can be removed.

  2. Trim the roots evenly and roll the tongue starting from the small end.

  3. Bandage tightly and stuff the mixture into the center.

Cook and press

  1. Boil for 3 hours and then place under a heavy press again.

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 + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together214 recipes

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

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tongue
The main meat, which the cure and long simmering make firm and sliceable.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during the cure.
Saltpetre
Helps cure the meat, preserving it and keeping its color pink.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor throughout the meat.
Lemon peel
Adds bright citrus aroma that lifts the rich spices.
Suet
Adds fat, giving richness and moisture to the filling.

The step that matters

Boil until the skin can be removed. A gentle simmer loosens the skin while keeping the meat tender. A hard, rolling boil toughens the meat proteins and can make the tongue dry and stringy.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (allspice, clove, nutmeg, lemon, thyme, summer savory, pepper):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against allspice, clove, nutmeg, lemon, thyme, summer savory, pepper. 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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