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Beef Tongue

Beef tongue is boiled, then stewed in gravy with soy, mushroom ketchup, and spices, served with truffles, morels, and mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice 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 ↓

Beef Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Cure

  1. Salt the tongue with saltpetre and common salt for a week, turning it daily.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the tongue until tender enough to peel, about 2-4 hours.

  2. Stew the tongue in a moderately strong gravy seasoned with soy, mushroom ketchup, cayenne pepper, pounded cloves, and additional salt if needed.

  3. Serve with truffles, morels, and mushrooms stewed in gravy.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef tongue
Is the main meat, which becomes tender through boiling and stewing.
Saltpetre
Helps cure the meat, giving it a pink colour and a cured flavour.
Common salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during the week-long cure.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping to brown and glaze the surface when basted.
Mushrooms
Add earthy aroma and savoury depth to the serving garnish and gravy.

The step that matters

Boiling until tender enough to peel. Undercooking leaves the tongue tough and hard to peel, while overcooking makes it fall apart. The skin should release easily once the connective tissue has softened fully.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, sugar, pepper, clove, allspice, butter, sauce):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, pepper, clove, allspice, butter, sauce. 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.

More beef tongue recipes

Boiled 58Pickled 14Baked 13Braised 13Roasted 12Smoked 12 See all 42 →

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