Name: Tongue with Eggs and Caper Sauce
Ingredients: ½ pound cooked tongue; 4-5 eggs; ⅓ cup caper sauce; ¼ cup light wine; rice, macaroni, or potatoes for border; a few spoonfuls of white sauce; chopped capers; red chillies; 2 ounces ham

Why it works: Rice and capers work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 121 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Tongue with Eggs and Caper Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tongue

Slice the tongue thinly from the thick end.
In a saucepan, combine the tongue, wine, and a little stock; heat through.
Remove the tongue, add the caper sauce, and pour it over the tongue.

Assemble and serve

Place the tongue in a border of rice, macaroni, or potatoes.
Garnish with fried or poached eggs, pour white sauce over them, and sprinkle with capers and chillies.
Cut the ham into small squares and arrange around the eggs.

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.

Rice + caperstop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together121 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Sauce + caperstop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together678 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,526 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Rice + hamtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together477 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Wine + ricetop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,223 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Tongue: Provides the main meat, which is gently reheated in wine and stock so it stays moist.
Eggs: Fried or poached eggs add richness and a soft, creamy yolk that pairs with the sauce.
Caper sauce: Adds a sharp, tangy acidity that balances the richness of the meat and eggs.
Light wine: Moistens and flavours the tongue during gentle heating in the saucepan.
Ham: Adds salty, savoury flavour and a contrasting texture around the eggs.

The step that matters

Heat the tongue gently in the wine and stock. Tongue is a dense, fatty meat that toughens and dries if it boils hard. Gentle heating keeps it tender and moist while it absorbs the flavour of the liquid.

Swap the capers

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sauce, wine, rice, ham):

Capersthe original
Tarragonfits about as well
Nutmegfits about as well
Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sauce, wine, rice, ham. 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.

Rice Fritters84 recipes

Steamed Rice48 recipes

Rice Griddle Cakes28 recipes

Rice and Cheese Casserole23 recipes

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Tongue with Eggs and Caper Sauce