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Beef Tongue Toast

A toast topped with grated boiled beef tongue mixed with parsley, salt, pepper, egg yolks, and cracker crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beef Tongue Toast

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the topping

  1. Grate the boiled beef tongue.

  2. Mix the grated tongue with parsley, salt, and pepper.

  3. Add egg yolks to form a paste.

  4. Keep the mixture hot but not boiling.

Assemble and bake

  1. Spread the mixture on the toast.

  2. Sprinkle cracker crumbs on top.

  3. Place in a 350°F (175°C) oven until ready.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Beef + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,866 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

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

  5. Beef + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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 meaty body and texture of the topping.
Egg yolks
Bind the grated tongue into a cohesive paste that holds on the toast.
Cracker crumbs
Add a crisp, toasted topping on the finished surface.

The step that matters

Keep the mixture hot but not boiling. Egg yolks thicken when warmed gently, but boiling can curdle them and make the paste grainy or loose.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits less well
  4. Dillfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, egg. 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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