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Sheeps' Tongues, En Papillotes

Sheeps' tongues are boiled, seasoned, wrapped in oiled paper, and broiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Sheeps' Tongues, En Papillotes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tongues

  1. Soak the sheep's tongues in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Place the tongues in boiling water until you can peel off the hard skin.

  3. Trim the roots and drain the tongues.

Make the seasoning and brown the tongues

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  2. Add the chopped sweet herbs, mushrooms, and minced bacon to the butter.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and spice to taste.

  4. When nicely browned, add the tongues to the mixture.

  5. Remove the tongues when browned and set aside to cool.

Wrap and serve

  1. Cut white paper into pieces for wrapping the tongues.

  2. Dip the paper in oil.

  3. Spread some seasoning on each tongue.

  4. Wrap the tongues separately in the oiled paper.

  5. Broil the wrapped tongues lightly and moisten with oil.

  6. Serve the tongues wrapped in paper.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sheep's tongues
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender when cooked through.
Butter
Carries the flavour and browns the tongues and herbs in the stewpan.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and savoury earthy flavour to the seasoning mixture.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky, savoury flavour to the seasoning mixture.

The step that matters

Browning the tongues in the seasoned butter. The tongues must be well browned before being set aside, since browning builds savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction. Cooking too briefly leaves them pale and bland, while overcooking dries the meat.

“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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