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Ox-Tongues

A stuffed ox tongue filled with eggs, apple, suet, and bacon, roasted and served with lemon and barberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ox-Tongues

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tongue

  1. Boil the neat's tongue until tender.

  2. Let it cool completely.

  3. Cut a hole in the underside.

  4. Scoop out the meat.

Make the stuffing

  1. Mince the meat with hard-boiled eggs, apple, beef suet, and bacon.

  2. Season the mixture with powdered ginger and salt.

Stuff and roast

  1. Stuff the mixture back into the tongue.

  2. Wrap the end in veal caul.

  3. Lard with fat bacon.

  4. Roast in front of a clear fire for about 2 hours.

  5. Remove the paper to brown the tongue for the last 20-25 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with red currant jelly, garnished with sliced lemon and barberries.

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. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Apple + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

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

  3. Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

  5. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Neat's tongue
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked until tender before stuffing.
Hard-boiled eggs
Bind the minced filling and give it a firm, sliceable texture.
Beef suet
Adds fat to the filling, keeping it moist and rich as it cooks.
Apple
Adds moisture and a touch of sweetness and acidity to the filling.
Bacon
Adds savoury fat and flavour to the stuffing and larding fat for the outside.

The step that matters

Remove the paper to brown the tongue for the last 20-25 minutes.. Browning relies on dry, high heat acting on the surface sugars and proteins. Removing the paper too early or too late can leave the tongue pale or dry out the meat beneath it.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, beef, ginger, veal, lemon, butter, sauce):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, beef, ginger, veal, lemon, butter, sauce. 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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