Why it works: Clove and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,671 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Spiced Tongue
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Cure the tongue
Rub the saltpetre and ground cloves into the tongue.
Place the tongue in a jar of brine made with ¾ pound of salt and 2 quarts of water. Use a weight to keep it submerged.
Let it sit in the brine for 2 weeks.
After 2 weeks, remove the tongue. Wash it well and dry it with a cloth.
Prepare and bake
Roll out a thin paste made of flour and water.
Wrap the tongue in the paste and place the wrapped tongue in a baking pan.
Baste well with lard and water.
Bake slowly at 300°F (150°C).
When done, remove the paste and skin before serving.
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.
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Clove + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,671 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Saltpetre
- Helps the tongue cure and keeps its colour pink during brining.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws out moisture and seasons the tongue during the long brine cure.
- Lard
- Adds fat for basting, keeping the surface moist and promoting browning as it bakes.
- Flour and water paste
- Forms a sealed wrapper that traps moisture around the tongue while it bakes.
The step that matters
Keep the tongue fully submerged in the brine. Any part of the tongue above the brine will cure unevenly and may spoil. A weight keeps the meat under the liquid for the full two weeks so salt and cure can penetrate evenly.
“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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