Name: Corned Beef Tongue with Spinach
Ingredients: 1 corned beef tongue; cold water; spinach; Espagnole sauce

Why it works: Beef and spinach work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 490 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Corned Beef Tongue with Spinach

Ingredients

1 corned beef tongue
cold water
spinach
Espagnole sauce

Directions

Place the tongue in a pot with cold water and bring to a boil.
Simmer until tender, then remove and skin the tongue.
Keep the tongue warm in hot broth.
Serve slices of the tongue on a bed of spinach.
Pour Espagnole sauce around the tongue.

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.

Beef + spinachtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together490 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Spinach + saucetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together756 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Beef + saucetop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,650 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).