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Pressed Tongue

A preserved beef tongue made by simmering, seasoning, pressing, and curing with vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Pressed Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the tongue

  1. Cover the beef tongue with cold water and simmer for 4 hours.

  2. Remove the tongue and let it cool.

  3. Boil the cooking liquid until reduced to 1 pint.

Press and set

  1. Chop the tongue into small pieces and mix with the spices and salt.

  2. Press the mixture into a square can or mold.

  3. Add the vinegar to the boiling liquid and pour over the meat.

  4. Press down and set in a cool place for 10 hours.

  5. Loosen the sides, turn it out carefully, and slice thin when ready to serve.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef tongue
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender after long simmering.
Cooking liquid (in the method)
Reduced to a concentrated broth that moistens and binds the pressed meat.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps the pressed meat hold together.
Ground cloves
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the meat.

The step that matters

Reducing the cooking liquid to 1 pint. Too much liquid leaves the pressed meat loose and wet, while reducing it concentrates flavour and gelatin so the mixture sets firm when chilled.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, clove, mace, cinnamon, allspice, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, clove, mace, cinnamon, allspice, pepper, vinegar. 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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