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Beef Tongue a LA Polonaise

A boiled beef tongue served with stewed apples and raisins in a beef broth sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,920 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Beef Tongue a LA Polonaise

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the tongue

  1. Boil the beef tongue in beef broth until tender.

  2. Remove the skin from the tongue.

Add the fruit and finish the sauce

  1. Add stewed apples and small raisins to the tongue.

  2. Let them stew together for a few minutes.

  3. If the sauce thickens too much, add more beef broth.

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. Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Beef + raisintop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Beef + appletop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,364 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef tongue
Provides the main meat; slow simmering breaks down its connective tissue until tender.
Beef broth
Cooks the tongue and forms the moist, savory base of the sauce.
Stewed apples
Add sweetness, body and a soft texture that thickens the sauce.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and a chewy texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the tongue until fully tender. Beef tongue is rich in connective tissue that only softens with long, gentle simmering. Stopping early leaves the meat tough and chewy, and the skin is much easier to remove once it is properly cooked.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, raisin):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Orangefits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, raisin. 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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