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To Boil an Ox Tongue

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and cauliflower match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 233 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Boil an Ox Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Soak the pickled tongue in cold water for 2-3 hours.

  2. Place the tongue in a pot with cold water and a bunch of savory herbs.

  3. Bring to a slow boil, skimming the surface, and let it boil slowly for about 5 hours.

  4. Once cooked, plunge the tongue into cold water to make skinning easier.

  5. Carefully skin the tongue, especially at the tip.

  6. Set the tongue root end against a board, securing it with forks to shape it.

  7. When cold, trim the root, glaze it, and garnish with parsley.

  8. For serving hot, wrap in buttered paper and heat in boiling water for 15 minutes, then glaze and garnish with cauliflower or Brussels sprouts.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Parsley + cauliflowertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together233 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Cauliflower + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together91 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, cauliflower):

  1. Broccolibetter flavor fit
  2. Turnipbetter flavor fit
  3. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, cauliflower. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

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