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Boiled Tongue

A boiled tongue seasoned with salt, vinegar, mustard, pepper, nutmeg, cloves, and bay leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Boiled Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the tongue overnight in water with salt and vinegar.

  2. In the morning, place the tongue in cold water.

  3. Add mustard, pepper, nutmeg, cloves, and bay leaves.

Cook

  1. Boil slowly for 4 hours, skimming while hot.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Vinegar
Adds acidity to the soaking water, which helps loosen and soften the tongue's tissue.
Bay leaves
Add a savoury, herbal aroma to the cooking liquid.
Cloves
Add a warm, pungent aroma that flavours the broth and meat.
Nutmeg
Adds a warm, sweet-spiced aroma to the cooking liquid.
Pepper
Adds sharp, pungent heat that seasons the meat and broth.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 4 hours, skimming while hot. A hard, rolling boil toughens meat proteins and churns fat and foam into the liquid. A gentle simmer keeps the tongue tender, and skimming while hot removes the scum that would otherwise cloud the broth.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, pepper, nutmeg, clove):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, nutmeg, clove. 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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