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Beef Tongue

A cooked beef tongue served with thick brown sauce and red currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Beef Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Divide the fresh tongue lengthwise.

  2. Boil the tongue until tender.

Brown and finish

  1. Dust the tongue with flour.

  2. Bake the tongue in butter at 400°F (200°C) until nicely browned.

  3. Stew the tongue in a thick brown sauce.

  4. Serve with red currant jelly.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + red curranttop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together495 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Beef tongue
Main protein that becomes tender through boiling and then stewing.
Flour
Dusting creates a dry surface that helps the tongue brown during baking.
Butter
Fat that carries heat to the surface, promoting browning and rich flavor during baking.
Thick brown sauce
Liquid that moistens the tongue and builds savory depth during stewing.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity that balances the rich, savory sauce.

The step that matters

Bake the tongue in butter until nicely browned. Flour and butter brown through the Maillard reaction, which needs dry surface heat. Too little heat or moisture left on the tongue leads to steaming rather than a good brown crust.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, flour, butter, sauce):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, flour, butter, sauce. 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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