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Stewed Tongue

A stew of beef tongue braised with bacon, herbs, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Stewed Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tongue

  1. Dredge the bacon fillets with parsley, salt, pepper, and allspice.

  2. Lard the tongue with the fillets.

Stew

  1. In a saucepan, combine sliced bacon, parsley, thyme, garlic, cloves, carrots, onions, salt, and pepper.

  2. Lay the tongue on top of the mixture.

  3. Pour in the white wine and broth.

  4. Simmer on moderate heat for about 5 hours, keeping it covered.

Serve

  1. Serve the tongue on a dish.

  2. Strain the sauce over it.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Allspice + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Tongue
Is the main cut that becomes tender through long, slow simmering.
Bacon
Adds savory fat and smoky flavor to the braising liquid and the larded fillets.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich braising liquid.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the sauce as they soften during simmering.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth to the sauce as they cook down.

The step that matters

Simmering on moderate heat while covered. Long, gentle simmering breaks down the tough connective tissue in the tongue. Boiling hard or uncovered can toughen the meat and reduce the liquid too quickly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, pepper, allspice, thyme, clove, garlic, carrot):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, pepper, allspice, thyme, clove, garlic, carrot. 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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