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Braised Tongue

Braised beef tongue simmered, then baked with vegetables and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Braised Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the tongue

  1. Place the beef tongue in a kettle and cover it with boiling water. Simmer for 2 hours.

  2. Remove the skin from the tongue, roll it up, and tie it.

  3. Place the tongue on a meat rack in a deep baking pan.

Make the sauce

  1. In a frying pan, melt the butter and let it brown.

  2. Stir in the flour and mix well.

  3. Add the quart of water used for boiling the tongue, along with the sliced potato, chopped onion, celery, carrot, mushroom ketchup (if using), and parsley.

  4. Bring the sauce to a boil, then pour it around the tongue in the baking pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the pan tightly and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 2 hours, basting every 30 minutes.

  2. Serve the tongue on a platter and pour the sauce around it.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Potato + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef tongue
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long simmering and then baking in liquid.
Butter
Browned in the pan, it adds a nutty, roasted flavour to the sauce.
Flour
Stirred into the browned butter, it thickens the sauce into a smooth gravy.
Potato
Breaks down slowly in the liquid, adding body and starch that help thicken the sauce.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it cooks, building savoury depth in the sauce.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury, umami flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cover the pan tightly and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 2 hours, basting every 30 minutes.. A tight cover traps moisture so the tongue braises rather than drying out. Regular basting returns liquid to the surface, keeping the meat moist and the sauce from reducing too far.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, butter, flour, potato, onion, carrot, mushroom):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, flour, potato, onion, carrot, mushroom. 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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