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To Boil a Smoked Tongue

A boiled smoked tongue served whole with mashed potatoes, parsley garnish, optional currant jelly, and optionally glazed and browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,855 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Boil a Smoked Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the smoked tongue in cold water overnight, or for 24 hours if it is very hard and dry.

  2. Place the tongue in a pot filled with cold water.

Cook

  1. Heat over low heat for 1 hour before bringing to a boil.

  2. Simmer for 3.5 to 4 hours, until tender throughout.

Serve

  1. Do not cut the tongue in half; serve whole with mashed potatoes and garnish with parsley.

  2. For a decorative presentation, rub the tongue with egg yolk, sprinkle with bread crumbs, baste with butter, and brown it before the fire.

  3. Cover the root with parsley and serve with slices of currant jelly if desired.

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. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Smoked tongue
Main protein; long simmering breaks down connective tissue so the meat becomes tender.
Egg yolk
Brushed on the surface to give a glossy, browned finish when heated.
Bread crumbs
Coating that forms a crisp, golden crust on the outside.
Butter
Fat that carries browning and adds richness to the coated surface.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until tender throughout. Tongue is a tough, collagen-rich muscle. A low, steady simmer over several hours slowly converts collagen to gelatin, while a hard boil can toughen the outer meat and leave the center firm.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, parsley, egg, bread, butter):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, parsley, egg, bread, butter. 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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