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Mutton Tongues

A stew of blanched mutton tongues simmered with stock, wine, onions, mushrooms, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Mutton Tongues

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tongues

  1. Blanch the sheep's tongues, then boil them in good stock broth until the skin can be easily removed.

  2. Split the tongues nearly through without separating them.

Braise

  1. In a stewpan, combine the tongues with a little stock, white wine, fried onions, shallot, garlic, mushrooms, mixed spice, pepper, and salt.

  2. Cook until the onions are tender.

Serve

  1. Serve the tongues on a dish with roots inwards, garnished with small onions and a puree of onions or turnips in the center.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Shallot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Sheep's tongues
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long simmering.
White wine
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savoury flavour of the sauce.
Button mushrooms
Contribute savoury, earthy flavour and moisture to the sauce.
Onions
Add sweetness as they soften and caramelise in butter and the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Boiling the tongues until the skin releases. Tongues must be simmered long enough for the tough outer skin to loosen from the meat. Undercooked tongues keep the skin stuck and the meat firm, while gentle simmering keeps the texture tender rather than stringy.

Swap the shallot

The recipe marks shallot as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, onion, butter, clove, garlic, mushroom, pepper):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Spinachfits less well
  4. Capsicumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, onion, butter, clove, garlic, mushroom, 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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