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Sheep's Tongues, with Turnips

A stew of sheep's tongues braised in haricot sauce and served with turnips.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,874 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sheep's Tongues, with Turnips

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tongues

  1. Soak the sheep's tongues in a mixture of water and flour to clean them.

  2. Blanch the tongues until thoroughly cooked.

Braise and serve

  1. Place the blanched tongues in a stewpan to braise.

  2. Once cooked, peel the tongues and cut them in half.

  3. Arrange the tongues in a dish, covering them with the haricot sauce.

  4. Place the turnips in the center of the dish.

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. Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sauce + turniptop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 blanching and braising.
Flour
Mixed with water to soak the tongues, helping clean them before cooking.
Haricot sauce
Coats the tongues with meaty moisture and savory flavor as they are served.
Turnips
Add a mild, slightly sweet vegetable contrast to the rich meat.

The step that matters

Blanch the tongues until thoroughly cooked. Tongues have a tough outer skin and dense connective tissue. Thorough cooking breaks down that tissue, so the meat becomes tender rather than chewy, and the skin loosens enough to peel.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Horseradishfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sauce. 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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