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Tongue, Stewed

A stew of boiled tongue simmered with herbs, spices, and a sauce thickened with flour and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,467 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Tongue, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tongue

  1. Wash the tongue and trim the coarser parts of the root.

  2. Rub it well with coarse sea salt and saltpetre, then let it sit for a week, turning and rubbing it daily.

  3. Boil the tongue until tender, then remove the skin.

Stew and season

  1. Place the tongue in a stewpan with the strained boiling liquid, strong stock, sweet herbs, bay leaves, and celery.

  2. Simmer gently for one hour.

  3. Remove the herbs and celery, then season the gravy with white pepper, salt if needed, pounded cloves, mushroom ketchup, lemon or walnut pickle, and white wine.

Finish and serve

  1. Thicken the sauce with flour and butter.

  2. Serve the tongue on a hot dish, pouring the sauce over it.

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. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  4. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Clove + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,663 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Tongue
Is the meat that becomes tender through boiling and slow simmering.
Saltpetre
Cures the meat, helping it keep its pink colour and firm texture during the week of salting.
Strong stock
Supplies the savoury base that the gravy is built on and flavours the meat as it stews.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the tongue instead of running off.
Butter
Enriches the thickened sauce, adding richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
White wine
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with flour and butter. Flour must be cooked into the butter and liquid so starch granules swell and gelatinise; adding it raw or unevenly leaves lumps or a floury taste.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, clove, mushroom, ketchup, lemon, white wine, flour):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, clove, mushroom, ketchup, lemon, white wine, flour. 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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