Skip to main content
Main

Ox Tongue, Curried

A dish of minced ox tongue seasoned with curry and spices, served on toasted French bread with mushroom and cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Ox Tongue, Curried

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the topping

  1. Mince the cooked ox tongue and mix with bacon fat, white pepper, curry powder, cayenne, and chopped mushrooms.

Assemble

  1. Toast the slices of French roll on both sides.

  2. Dip the toasted slices in a mixture of claret and beaten egg, then sprinkle with grated nutmeg and cayenne.

  3. Spread the tongue mixture thickly on each slice and place a button mushroom in the center.

Bake and serve

  1. Coat with rich cream sauce and heat in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  2. Serve hot with boiled rice.

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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Mushroom + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,515 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Nutmeg + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 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

Cooked ox tongue
Forms the savoury meat base that the topping is built from.
French dinner roll
Provides a toasted bread base that holds the topping and soaks up the egg mixture.
Beaten egg
Binds the dipping mixture and helps the bread set and brown as it heats.
Bacon fat
Adds richness and moisture to the minced tongue so it stays tender.
Rich cream sauce
Adds moisture and richness over the top, softening the topping as it heats.

The step that matters

Toasting the roll before dipping. Toasting dries the bread so it can absorb the claret and egg mixture without turning soggy, and holds its shape under the heavy topping.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, mushroom, egg, nutmeg, cream, sauce, rice):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, mushroom, egg, nutmeg, cream, sauce, rice. 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.

You might also like

Rice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipesRice Griddle CakesRice Griddle Cakes28 recipes