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To Roast Tongue and Udder

Roast tongue and udder with coarse sea salt, saltpetre, cloves, served with gravy and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,038 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

To Roast Tongue and Udder

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the tongue thoroughly.

  2. Rub the tongue with coarse sea salt and saltpetre; let it cure for 3 days.

Cook

  1. Boil the tongue and udder in water until tender.

  2. Tie the thick end of the tongue to the thin end of the udder.

  3. Roast the tongue and udder until cooked through.

Serve

  1. Serve with gravy and currant jelly; stick a few cloves into the udder.

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. Clove + curranttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Beef + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Beef + curranttop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,464 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef tongue
Forms the main cut, which becomes tender through boiling and then roasting.
Beef udder
Serves as a second main cut that is boiled until tender and then roasted with the tongue.
Saltpetre
Cures the meat, helping preserve it and give it a pink color.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons and cures the meat during the rubbed-on curing period.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the rich, savory meat.
Cloves
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavor to the udder.

The step that matters

Curing the tongue with salt and saltpetre. Salt and saltpetre draw out moisture and season the meat deeply while preserving it and setting its color. Skipping the full 3-day cure or rubbing unevenly leaves the meat under-seasoned and less evenly colored.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Quincefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, 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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