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Stewed Tongue

A stew of boiled tongue with flour, tomatoes, onions, pickles, and Worcestershire sauce.

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

Stewed Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tongue

  1. Boil the tongue in salted water until half cooked, then skin and slice it.

Make the stew

  1. In a hot pan with butter, add the flour and sliced tongue.

  2. Add cloves, tomatoes, minced green onion, and water.

  3. Cover and let cook for about 1 hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, stir in Worcestershire sauce, parsley, and chopped pickles.

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. Tomato + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,405 recipes

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

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Parsley + cucumbertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Tongue
Forms the main body of the dish; slow moist cooking softens its tough connective tissue.
Browned flour
Thickens the cooking liquid and adds a toasted, savory flavor to the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the flour and tongue brown in the hot pan.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the sauce, balancing the rich meat.
Pickles
Add sharp acidity and a tangy note that cuts through the richness.

The step that matters

Cover and cook gently for about 1 hour. Slow, covered cooking at a gentle simmer breaks down the tongue's connective tissue so it becomes tender. Cooking it too hard or too fast can leave the meat tough and the liquid reduced too quickly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, clove, tomato, parsley, butter, cucumber, pepper):

  1. Eggplantfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, clove, tomato, parsley, butter, cucumber, pepper. 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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