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Tongue Cheese

A cold dish made from boiled beef tongue, calves' livers, and salt pork, minced and pressed into a pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Tongue Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the meats

  1. Boil the beef tongue, calves' livers, and salt pork until well done.

Shape and chill

  1. Mince the cooked meats very fine.

  2. Season with spices to taste, if desired.

  3. Press the mixture into a pan or mold until cold.

Serve

  1. Slice and serve as a delicious cold dish for lunch.

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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Liver + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  3. Beef + livertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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 body and rich flavor once cooked and minced.
Calves' livers
Adds a deeper, mineral-rich flavor and a softer texture to the mixture.
Salt pork
Adds fat and moisture, helping the minced mixture hold together and stay tender.

The step that matters

Press the mixture into a pan or mold until cold. Pressing packs the minced meats together so they set into a firm loaf that slices cleanly. Cooling fully lets the fat firm up, which holds the shape.

“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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