Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓
To Cure Tongues
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
If the root is to be removed, cut it off near the gullet without taking away the fat under the tongue.
Soak the root in salt and water overnight and clean it well before cooking.
Sprinkle the tongue with salt and let it drain overnight.
Cure
Mix the salt, sugar, saltpetre, pepper, and garlic; rub this mixture into the tongue daily for a week.
After a week, add another ½ cup of salt.
For drying, write the date on parchment and tie it to the tongue.
Smoke or dry and cook
Smoke the tongue for 3 days or hang it in a dry place without smoking.
To cook, boil the tongue until tender, about 5 hours.
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.
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Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together17,451 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together17,182 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,401 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and clove barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Neats' tongue
- Is the meat being cured, so its texture is what the cure and cooking change.
- Common salt
- Draws out moisture and seasons the meat, helping it cure and firm up.
- Coarse sugar
- Balances the salt and adds sweetness to the cured surface.
- Saltpetre
- Helps preserve the color and cured flavor of the meat during curing.
- Garlic or shallot
- Adds aroma and savory flavor to the cure rub.
The step that matters
Boil until tender. Tongue is a tough, fatty muscle that needs long, gentle simmering to break down connective tissue. Boiling it hard or cutting it short can leave it chewy.
Swap the clove
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, pepper):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Cardamomfits about as well
- Allspicefits about as well
- Clovethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, pepper. 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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