Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Tongue Toast
Ingredients
Directions
Make the tongue mixture
Finely mince the cold boiled tongue.
Mix the minced tongue with the cream or milk.
Add the well-beaten egg yolks to the mixture for every ½ cup.
Place the mixture over low heat and let it simmer for 1-2 minutes.
Serve
Prepare some nicely toasted bread and butter it.
Place the buttered toast on a hot dish and pour the tongue mixture over it.
Serve hot.
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.
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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together42,166 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Cream + breadtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,789 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
- Cold boiled tongue
- Forms the main meaty body of the mixture and gives it savoury flavour.
- Cream or milk
- Adds moisture and richness, keeping the minced tongue soft and spreadable.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken and bind the mixture as gentle heat sets the proteins.
The step that matters
Simmer the egg yolk mixture gently. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, but high heat or long cooking makes them curdle and turn grainy. Keeping the heat low and the time short keeps the mixture smooth and pourable over the toast.
“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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