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Baked Tongue with Tomato-sauce

A dish of baked tongue served in a tomato, onion, pepper, and salt sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Tongue with Tomato-sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the tongue

  1. Parboil the fresh tongue in salted water until tender enough to peel.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pot, stew the tomatoes, onion, black pepper, and salt for 15 to 20 minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the tongue in a baking pan and pour the sauce over it.

  2. Bake until nicely 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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Tongue
Provides the main meat; parboiling softens its connective tissue so it becomes tender.
Tomatoes
Provide moisture and acidity, breaking down into the body of the sauce.
Onion
Adds aroma and mild sweetness as it softens during stewing.

The step that matters

Parboil the tongue until tender enough to peel. Undercooked tongue stays tough and resists peeling, while the connective tissue needs enough heat and time to soften. Overcooking makes the meat mushy and harder to slice later.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Eggplantfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, pepper. 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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