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Stewed Tongue

A slow‑cooked ox tongue stewed with bacon, herbs, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove 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 ↓

Stewed Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut bacon into lardoons and sprinkle with salt, pepper, parsley, and allspice.

  2. Lard the ox tongue with the seasoned bacon.

Stew

  1. In a saucepan, combine the tongue, bacon, parsley, thyme, carrots, onions, cloves, salt, and pepper.

  2. Cover with stock and add sherry.

  3. Simmer for 5 hours, keeping the saucepan covered.

Serve

  1. Strain the sauce over the tongue before serving.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Allspice + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox tongue
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow simmering.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that moistens the lean tongue as it cooks.
Stock
Braising liquid that gently cooks the tongue and forms the base of the sauce.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the cooking liquid and sauce.
Carrots
Release sweetness and body into the braising liquid as they cook.
Onions
Contribute savory sweetness and depth to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Keeping the saucepan covered while simmering. A covered pan holds moisture and keeps the liquid from reducing too fast, so the tongue stays submerged and cooks gently. Low, steady heat breaks down the tough connective tissue slowly, giving tender meat rather than dry, stringy meat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, parsley, allspice, thyme, carrot, clove, sherry):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, parsley, allspice, thyme, carrot, clove, sherry. 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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