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Langue De Bceuf Piquee Et Rotie

A boiled beef tongue cooked in stock with bacon, bouquet garni, onion, cloves, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Langue De Bceuf Piquee Et Rotie

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer

  1. In a saucepan, combine stock, bacon, bouquet garni, onion with cloves, pepper, and salt.

  2. Bring to a boil, then add the tongue.

  3. Cover with a lid and a weight, and let it simmer gently for 3 hours.

Finish

  1. Remove the tongue and let it cool.

  2. Strain the gravy through a sieve.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Good stock
Provides the liquid that cooks the tongue and carries flavour into the gravy.
Streaky bacon
Adds fat and savoury, smoky flavour to the cooking liquid.
Onion
Adds sweet, savoury aroma to the liquid as it simmers.

The step that matters

Simmer gently rather than boil. Once the liquid reaches a boil, it should be turned down to a gentle simmer. Vigorous boiling toughens muscle proteins and can break the meat apart, while slow, low heat gives collagen time to soften into gelatin, leaving the tongue tender.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, 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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