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Ox-tongue

A braised ox tongue with carrot, onion, celery, bouquet garni, 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

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

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

Braise

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

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

  3. Braise gently on low heat for 2.5 hours.

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
Is the main meat, becoming tender and rich through long, gentle braising.
Broth or stock
Provides the liquid that keeps the tongue moist and carries flavour during the long braise.
Brandy
Adds aromatic depth and helps lift flavours from the vegetables and spices.
Onion
Builds savoury sweetness and aromatic base as it softens in the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Braise gently on low heat. Connective tissue in tongue breaks down into tender gelatin only with slow, low heat over time. A rapid boil toughens the surface and can leave the meat firm and stringy, so keep the liquid at a bare simmer.

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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