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Pressed Tongue

A jellied tongue dish made by simmering, slicing, and pressing the tongue in broth until firm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and veal are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,049 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Pressed Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tongue

  1. Wash the tongue and soak it in cold water overnight.

  2. Place the tongue in a kettle of cold water and bring it slowly to a boil.

  3. Season the water and simmer the tongue until very tender.

Cool and press

  1. Allow the tongue to cool in the cooking liquid, then remove the fat and skim carefully.

  2. Slice the tongue thinly and pack it into a mold.

  3. Pour veal broth over the tongue until it is covered, ensuring it does not float.

  4. Set the mold on ice or in a cool place until the jelly is firm.

Serve

  1. Turn out the pressed tongue onto a chilled platter.

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 + vealtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Tongue
Forms the main body of the pressed dish once cooked, sliced and set in jelly.
Veal broth
Covers the tongue and sets into a firm jelly that holds the slices together.

The step that matters

Pour veal broth over the tongue until it is covered, ensuring it does not float.. Slices that float or stay exposed can dry out or set unevenly, and the broth must fully cover them so the gelatin binds the pack into one firm, even block.

“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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