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Braised Tongue

Braised tongue cooked with onions, turnip, carrot, herbs, cinnamon, clove, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Braised Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the tongue

  1. Trim the boiled tongue.

  2. Tie the tip against the thick part.

  3. Fry the onions, turnip, and carrot in butter until browned.

  4. Set the fried vegetables aside.

  5. Dust the tongue with flour.

  6. Brown the tongue in the hot pan with butter.

Braise

  1. Combine the tongue, fried vegetables, sweet herbs, cinnamon, clove, salt, and pepper in a pot.

  2. Close the lid tightly.

  3. Place the pot in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

  4. After 1½ hours, turn the tongue.

  5. Add the lemon juice.

  6. Close the pot again.

  7. Cook for another 30 minutes.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Transfer the tongue to a hot dish over hot water.

  2. Boil down the gravy for 20-30 minutes.

  3. If the gravy is not thick enough, mix 1 heaping teaspoon of cornstarch with a little cold water. Stir the mixture into the boiling gravy.

  4. Cook for 2-3 minutes.

  5. Strain some gravy over the tongue.

  6. Serve the rest in a sauceboat.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Tongue
Is the main meat; long braising turns its tough muscle tender and rich.
Onions
Softened and browned in butter, they build sweetness and depth in the braising liquid.
Boiling liquid
Provides moisture that keeps the tongue from drying out during the long, covered braise.
Cornstarch (in the method)
Thickens the boiled-down gravy into a smooth, glossy sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy and balances its savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Close the pot tightly and keep the braise covered. A tight lid traps steam so the tough tongue stays moist and slowly breaks down into tender meat; a loose lid lets liquid evaporate and the meat dry out.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cinnamon, turnip, carrot, butter, flour, clove, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, turnip, carrot, butter, flour, clove, pepper. 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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