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To Stew Beef Tongue

A stew of beef tongue simmered with spices, walnut catsup, onion, parsley, and pickle, served hot with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Stew Beef Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cover the beef tongue with water in a pot.

  2. Let it stew for six hours.

  3. Skim the surface well.

Make the stew

  1. Half an hour before serving, add the cloves, allspice, mace, walnut catsup, chopped onion, parsley, and pickle.

  2. If desired, add the wine to the gravy.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, pouring the gravy over the tongue.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,289 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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
Long stewing turns the tough muscle tender and releases rich flavour into the liquid.
Walnut catsup
Adds a dark, tangy, savoury depth that seasons the gravy.
Onion
Releases sweetness and aromatic body into the gravy as it cooks.
Wine
Adds acidity and extra aroma to the gravy, if used.

The step that matters

Skim the surface well. Fat and foam rise to the top during long simmering. Removing them keeps the gravy clean-tasting and prevents a greasy, cloudy broth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, clove, allspice, walnut, onion, parsley, wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, clove, allspice, walnut, onion, parsley, wine. 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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