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Potted Ox-tongue

A preserved dish made from boiled ox tongue mixed with butter and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Potted Ox-tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the tongue

  1. Boil the ox tongue until tender.

  2. Let it cool overnight.

  3. Trim off the skin and rind.

  4. Weigh the meat.

Prepare the paste

  1. Mince the meat very small.

  2. Pound it as fine as possible.

  3. Mix in 4 oz of butter for each pound of tongue.

  4. Add 1 teaspoon of mace, ½ teaspoon of nutmeg and ½ teaspoon of cloves.

  5. Add a high seasoning of cayenne.

  6. Taste the mixture, and adjust the spices if needed.

  7. Mix in a few ounces of well-roasted meat for added firmness.

Serve

  1. Ensure the mixture is less than milk warm 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.

  1. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Ox tongue
Forms the main body of the potted meat, giving it substance and a tender, spreadable texture once pounded.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, binding the pounded meat into a smooth, spreadable paste.
Mace
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the meat.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavour that complements the meat and butter.
Cloves
Adds strong aromatic spice flavour to the meat.

The step that matters

Pound the meat as fine as possible. Thorough pounding breaks the meat into fine particles so it blends evenly with the butter. Coarse pieces leave a lumpy, unevenly textured paste.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, nutmeg, clove, meat):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, nutmeg, clove, meat. 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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