Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 27,039 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the tongue
Dissolve the salt in boiling water to cover the tongue and cook until done.
Remove the skin and slice the tongue very thin.
Make the pepper sauce
Cut the peppers open lengthwise, remove seeds and veins, and cut off the stem end.
Boil the pepper skins in water for 2 hours without simmering.
Press out all the water from the peppers, chop to a pulp, and pass through a sieve.
Mix in oil and vinegar by spoonfuls, then add the pitted olives.
Assemble and serve
Dip each slice of tongue in the sauce and arrange in a deep dish.
Pour the remaining sauce over the tongue and serve the next day.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Pepper + lemontop 2% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together27,039 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Pepper + summer savorytop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together671 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Olive + vinegartop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together10,843 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
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Olive + lemontop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together10,849 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Lemon + summer savorytop 5% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together115 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
- Is the main protein, cooked in salted water and then sliced thin for serving.
- Peppers
- Provide the bulk of the sauce, and pressing out water helps it reach a thick pulp.
- Olives
- Add briny, savoury flavour to the sauce.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the oil.
- Vinegar
- Adds sharp acidity that sharpens the flavour of the sauce.
- Olive oil
- Adds fat and smooth texture, emulsifying into the pepper pulp when mixed in by spoonfuls.
The step that matters
Pressing out the water from the peppers. Excess water left in the pepper pulp dilutes the sauce and makes it runny, so the pulp must be pressed dry before the oil and vinegar are mixed in.
Flavor stand-ins for the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, pepper, lemon, vinegar, summer savory):
- Capsicumbetter flavor fit
- Tomatobetter flavor fit
- Carrotbetter flavor fit
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against olive, pepper, lemon, vinegar, summer savory. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).
“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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