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Ox-tongue

Braised ox tongue with carrot, onion, celery, herbs, cloves, mace, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Ox-tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tongue

  1. Scald the ox tongue in boiling water for about 10 minutes.

  2. Immerse it in cold water, then remove the root and excess fat.

Braise

  1. Place the tongue in a stewpan with carrot, onion, celery, herbs, cloves, and mace.

  2. Add brandy and enough broth to cover the tongue.

  3. Braise gently for 2.5 hours on a slow fire.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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 dish, becoming tender through long, gentle braising.
Brandy
Adds aroma and a rich flavour to the braising liquid.
Broth or stock
Provides the moist liquid that slowly cooks the tongue until tender.

The step that matters

Braise gently on a slow fire. Tough connective tissue breaks down into gelatin only with low, steady heat. Boiling vigorously toughens the meat fibres and can leave the tongue dry and stringy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, onion, celery, clove, brandy):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, onion, celery, clove, brandy. 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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