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Home-made Potted Tongue

A preserved beef tongue made by mincing, seasoning, and packing in butter and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Home-made Potted Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tongue

  1. Cut off the hard skin of the tongue.

  2. Pass the meat through a mincing machine.

Make the mixture

  1. Pound the meat in a mortar, adding butter and gravy.

  2. Press the mixture through a wire sieve to remove gristle and lumps.

  3. Mix in the spiced pepper and mace.

Pot and seal

  1. Pack the mixture tightly in a jar.

  2. Smooth the surface.

  3. Melt one tablespoon of butter. Pour the melted butter over the surface.

  4. Let it cool.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

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

  5. Butter + macetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Home-cured tongue
Forms the main body of the potted meat, giving it its substance and savoury flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the pounded meat become smooth and spreadable.
Beef gravy
Adds moisture and savoury depth, loosening the pounded meat into a spreadable texture.
Mace
Contributes a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the meat.

The step that matters

Pressing through the sieve. Pressing the pounded mixture through a wire sieve removes gristle and lumps, which would otherwise leave the texture coarse and uneven rather than smooth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, beef, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, beef, pepper. 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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