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Potted Tongue

A preserved tongue dish made with cooked tongue, roast beef or mutton, butter, spices, anchovies, and clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Potted Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the tongue

  1. Remove the hard outer layer and gristly parts from the tongue.

  2. Chop the tongue finely.

Pot the mixture

  1. Combine the chopped tongue with the roast beef or mutton, butter, cayenne, and nutmeg or cloves.

  2. Press the mixture into pots.

  3. Cover the mixture with clarified butter.

Bake and finish

  1. In a jar, combine the chopped meat with water, salt, pepper, allspice, and ground cloves.

  2. Add the anchovies.

  3. Cover the jar.

  4. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 1.5 hours. Remove from the oven.

  5. Pound the mixture in a mortar.

  6. Press the mixture into jars.

  7. Top with clarified butter.

  8. 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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 potted meat and carries its primary flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, spreadable texture as the mixture cools.
Roast beef or mutton
Adds extra meaty flavor and body to the tongue.
Anchovies
Contribute salty, savory depth that rounds out the meat.

The step that matters

Covering with clarified butter. A fat layer that is thick and unbroken keeps air away from the meat, slowing spoilage and oxidation. Gaps in the layer let air reach the surface, so the cover should be complete.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

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