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Baked Tongue

A baked tongue dish with vinegar, capers, parsley, shallots, grated bread, and warm water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 405 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Baked 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.

Prepare

  1. In a deep dish, mix vinegar, capers, parsley, shallots, and half of the grated bread.

  2. Layer the tongue slices on top and cover with the remaining seasoning.

  3. Sprinkle the rest of the grated bread over the top.

  4. Moisten the mixture with a little warm water.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven until browned.

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. Capers + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Capers + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Vinegar + shallottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,374 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Shallot + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Tongue
Forms the main body of the dish and is the protein that the baked crumb topping covers.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich meat and sharpens the flavour of the seasoning.
Grated bread
Absorbs moisture and liquid, forming a crumb layer that helps the top brown in the oven.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny flavour that contrasts with the richness of the meat.

The step that matters

Moisten the mixture with a little warm water. Too little liquid lets the bread crumbs dry out and burn before the tongue heats through, while too much makes the topping soggy and stops it browning. A small splash keeps the crumbs moist enough to brown evenly.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, capers, shallot, bread):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Garlicfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, capers, shallot, bread. 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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