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Beef Tongue

Tender beef tongue prepared by soaking, simmering, peeling, glazing, and browning with egg yolk, breadcrumbs, herbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Beef Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the tongue

  1. Soak the tongue overnight if dried and smoked; if pickled, soak for a few hours.

  2. Place the tongue in cold water and simmer over low heat for 1–2 hours before boiling.

  3. Keep the tongue simmering for 3–4 hours until tender.

  4. Check doneness with a skewer.

Peel, glaze and brown

  1. Peel the tongue.

  2. Trim the root.

  3. Glaze the tongue.

  4. Surround the root with a paper frill.

  5. Garnish with flowers.

  6. Rub the skinned tongue with egg yolk.

  7. Sprinkle bread crumbs and herbs over the tongue.

  8. Baste the tongue with butter.

  9. Brown 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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Saltpetre
Helps cure the meat, preserving it and giving it a pink colour and cured flavour.
Common salt
Seasons the meat and helps draw moisture and flavour into it during curing.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during cooking.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the surface brown when basted.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, golden crust on the outside of the tongue.

The step that matters

Keep the tongue simmering for 3–4 hours until tender. Gentle simmering breaks down the tough connective tissue slowly. A hard rolling boil toughens the meat and can break the skin.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, sugar, pepper, clove, allspice, butter, bread):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, pepper, clove, allspice, butter, bread. 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.

More beef tongue recipes

Boiled 58Pickled 14Baked 13Braised 13Roasted 12Smoked 12 See all 42 →

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