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Ox-tongue

A braised ox tongue cooked with carrot, onion, celery, herbs, cloves, mace, and brandy, served warm in its glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Ox-tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scald the ox tongue in boiling water for 10 minutes, then immerse the tongue in cold water.

  2. Remove the root and excess fat.

Braise

  1. Place the tongue in a pot with carrot, onion, celery, bouquet garni, cloves, and mace.

  2. Add brandy and enough broth to cover the tongue.

  3. Braise gently for 2.5 hours on a slow fire.

Glaze and serve

  1. Remove the tongue.

  2. Strain the braising liquid.

  3. Reduce the liquid to half.

  4. Warm the tongue in its glaze on a very slow fire.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox tongue
Is the main cut; long braising breaks down its connective tissue until it turns tender.
Brandy
Adds aroma and a little acidity to the braising liquid, deepening its flavour.
Broth or stock
Provides the moist, savoury liquid that cooks the tongue gently through braising.
Carrot, onion, and celery
Release sweetness and savoury flavour into the braising liquid as they cook.

The step that matters

Braise gently for 2.5 hours on a slow fire. A rolling boil toughens meat and can make it stringy. Gentle heat slowly converts collagen into gelatin, so the tongue becomes tender and the liquid becomes rich enough to reduce into a glaze.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, celery, clove, brandy):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, celery, clove, brandy. 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 ox tongue recipes

Potted 20Braised 12Boiled 11Roasted 4Pickled 3Stewed 3 See all 10 →

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