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Soup

Slices of Ox Tongue a LA Monaco

Thin slices of cooked ox tongue served on fried bread croutons with mushroom puree, marrow, brown sauce, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,176 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Slices of Ox Tongue a LA Monaco

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tongue

  1. Use a cutter to stamp out rounds from the ox tongue slices, about 2 inches in diameter.

  2. Heat the rounds in a sauté pan with a little stock and sherry until hot.

Assemble

  1. Place each slice on a crouton of fried bread topped with mushroom puree.

  2. On each tongue slice, add a slice of prepared marrow.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In the sauté pan, combine the thick brown sauce with the liquor from warming the tongue and add the glaze.

  2. Bring to a boil, then stir in the mustards and serve immediately around the croutons.

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. Sherry + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sauce + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sherry + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together682 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Mushroom + mustardtop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together881 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Thick brown sauce
Forms the body of the sauce that coats the tongue and croutons.
Glaze
Adds gloss and concentrated savoury flavour to the sauce.
Puree of fresh mushrooms
Adds moist, earthy flavour between the bread and the tongue.
Slices of marrow
Adds rich fat that softens and melts into the warm dish.
English mustard
Adds sharp heat that cuts through the richness of the meat and sauce.

The step that matters

Bring to a boil, then stir in the mustards. Mustard's sharp pungency fades with prolonged heat, so adding it at the end and serving immediately keeps its bite. Boiling after adding it can dull the flavour and make the sauce separate or taste flat.

Flavor stand-ins for the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sherry, bread, mushroom, sauce):

  1. Shallotbetter flavor fit
  2. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  3. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, bread, mushroom, sauce. 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).

“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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