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Braised Fresh Ox Tongue

Braised fresh ox tongue with carrots, turnip, celery, onions, cloves, bay leaf, mace, salt, pepper, brandy, stock, and Madeira glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 10,173 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Braised Fresh Ox Tongue

Oven, in the book's wordsA medium oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and braise

  1. Blanch and trim the ox tongue.

  2. Place the tongue in a braising pan with sliced carrots, turnip, celery, onions, cloves, bay leaf, mace, salt, pepper, and cooking brandy.

  3. Cover with stock and braise slowly until tender.

Make the glaze

  1. Remove the tongue from the braising pan.

  2. Place the tongue in a separate pan.

  3. Strain and skim the braising liquid.

  4. Mix the strained liquid with Madeira sauce and reduce to a half glaze.

  5. Pour the glaze over the tongue.

  6. Keep the glazed tongue warm.

Serve

  1. Slice the braised tongue thinly.

  2. Arrange the slices overlapping in the center of a dish.

  3. Cover the slices with glaze.

  4. Garnish with potato croquettes.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox tongue
Main protein; slow braising breaks down connective tissue, leaving it tender.
Stock
Liquid that carries flavor into the tongue and keeps it moist during the long braise.
Madeira sauce
Adds depth and body to the braising liquid, forming the glaze that coats the slices.
Onions
Release sweetness and savory depth into the braising liquid as they cook.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and aromatic flavor to the braising liquid.
Cooking brandy
Adds aromatic alcohol notes that help carry flavor from the aromatics into the liquid.

The step that matters

Braise slowly until tender. Tongue is dense with connective tissue. Slow, gentle simmering converts collagen to gelatin, giving tender meat; a hard boil toughens the muscle fibers and can leave it stringy.

Flavor stand-ins for the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, celery, onion, clove, pepper, brandy):

  1. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  2. Thymebetter flavor fit
  3. Marjorambetter flavor fit
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery, onion, clove, pepper, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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