Name: Boiled Tongue
Ingredients: 1 beef tongue; coarse sea salt; pepper; parsley for garnish; egg sauce for garnish

Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Boiled Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

If using salt tongue, wash it in cold water. If using fresh tongue, soak it in strong salt water overnight.
Change the water when cooking. Add salt while cooking.
Boil the tongue for 4 to 5 hours until tender.
Remove the tongue from the pot and strip off the outer skin.
Place the tongue on a platter and garnish with egg sauce.
To serve cold, skin the tongue while hot, place it in a crock, sprinkle with pepper, and press with a plate.
Add a little of the cooking broth and refrigerate until the next day.
Slice thin and garnish with parsley before serving.

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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beef + parsleytop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,866 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,765 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + saucetop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,693 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).