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Tongue with Tomato Sauce

Tongue cooked in tomato sauce with stock, onion juice, and flour for thickening, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 20,633 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Tongue with Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the tongue

  1. Boil the tongue until tender.

  2. Remove the skin and return the tongue to the kettle.

Make the sauce

  1. Add ½ cup stock and 1 can of tomatoes.

  2. Cook slowly until the tomatoes are done.

  3. Add flour to thicken the sauce as for gravy.

  4. Stir in 2 tablespoons of onion juice.

Serve

  1. Remove the tongue to a platter and pour the sauce over it.

  2. Garnish with parsley.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together20,633 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Tongue
Forms the main body of the dish and carries the rich, savory flavor.
Tomatoes
Provide acidity and body, forming the base of the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the tongue like gravy.
Stock
Adds liquid and savory depth to the sauce.
Onion juice
Adds aromatic onion flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce with flour. Flour must be cooked in the hot liquid long enough to swell and set smoothly. Adding it to cold liquid or stirring too little can leave lumps or a raw, starchy taste.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, flour, parsley):

  1. Okrabetter flavor fit
  2. Eggplantbetter flavor fit
  3. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, flour, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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