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Spiced Tongue

A boiled tongue seasoned with spices, served in a tomato and gelatin aspic.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the tongue

  1. Cover the tongue with water, adding salt, bay leaves, ground cloves in a cloth, red pepper, and black pepper.

  2. Keep covered with water and boil until easily pierced with a fork.

  3. Remove the tongue, peel off the skin, and place it in a skillet with vinegar, sugar, and ground allspice.

  4. Cook slowly until almost dry, then remove to a platter and set aside.

Make the tomato aspic

  1. For the tomato aspic, strain the canned tomatoes through a fine strainer, including as much pulp as possible.

  2. Add lemon juice, onion, bay leaves, whole cloves, and white pepper to the strained tomatoes.

  3. Cook for 15 minutes.

  4. Soak gelatin in cold water to cover for 30 minutes, then dissolve in hot water.

  5. Pour the dissolved gelatin into the tomato juice, strain again, and set on ice.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Tongue
Main protein; slow simmering in seasoned water makes it tender enough to pierce easily.
Tomatoes
Provide the liquid and acidic flavour base for the aspic.
Gelatin
Sets the strained tomato liquid into a firm, sliceable aspic when chilled.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the tongue's rich flavour during the final reduction.
Lemon juice
Adds bright acidity that balances the tomato and gives the aspic a fresher taste.

The step that matters

Cook the tongue slowly until almost dry in the skillet. Reducing the vinegar, sugar and allspice slowly lets the liquid concentrate and glaze the meat without scorching. Rushing with high heat can burn the sugar and leave the surface bitter.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, pepper, vinegar, sugar, allspice, tomato, lemon):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Cucumberfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, pepper, vinegar, sugar, allspice, tomato, lemon. 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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