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Tongue in Aspic

A chilled smoked tongue set in a savory gelatin broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Tongue in Aspic

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tongue

  1. Boil the smoked tongue until tender, then skin it.

  2. Place the tongue in a long narrow pan.

Make the aspic

  1. Prepare a bouillon with beef extract, red pepper, coarse sea salt, lemon juice, and herbs.

  2. Simmer the bouillon for a few minutes.

  3. Add enough dissolved gelatin to the bouillon to set it.

  4. Strain the bouillon over the tongue, covering it slightly.

Set and serve

  1. Refrigerate until set.

  2. Serve whole and slice with a sharp knife.

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

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Beef + lemontop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,278 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + gelatintop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,215 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

  5. Beef + gelatintop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together59 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-pinene (pine, resin).

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

What each ingredient does

Smoked tongue
Provides the main meat and savoury flavour of the dish.
Gelatin
Sets the bouillon into a firm, sliceable jelly once chilled.
Beef extract
Gives the bouillon a concentrated, savoury beef flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the bouillon.

The step that matters

Add enough dissolved gelatin to the bouillon to set it. Gelatin must be fully dissolved and mixed evenly into the warm bouillon before it is strained over the tongue. Undissolved or too little gelatin leaves the aspic soft or grainy, while too much makes it rubbery and stiff.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, gelatin):

  1. Mangofits about as well
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, gelatin. 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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