Skip to main content
Main

Jellied Tongue

A gelatinous dish of boiled beef tongue set in a spiced broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Jellied Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Clear the consommé or broth and boil it down with spices until strong and well-flavored.

  2. If using broth, dissolve the gelatin in cold water for 1 hour.

Make the jelly

  1. Pour the boiling broth over the gelatin and stir over the heat until dissolved.

  2. Strain the mixture and add wine to taste.

  3. Ensure the mixture measures 3 pints for 1 box of gelatin.

Set and serve

  1. Prepare a mold with the cold boiled tongue, either whole or sliced.

  2. Pour the jelly over the tongue and set aside to harden.

  3. Once set, turn out the jelly and garnish with parsley and lemon.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Beef + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,866 recipes

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

  4. Beef + winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethylphenol (must).

  5. Wine + parsleytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Gels the liquid as it cools, so the jelly holds its shape when turned out.
Consommé or broth
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour and becomes the clear jelly.
Beef tongue
Main meat, set whole or sliced inside the clear jelly.
Wine
Adds flavour and a little acidity to the clear jelly.
Spices
Build the aroma and depth of flavour in the reduced broth.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatine fully in the hot broth. Gelatine only sets when it is completely dissolved. Undissolved grains leave specks and weak patches, so stir over heat until no grains remain before straining and pouring.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, wine, lemon):

  1. Rosemaryfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, wine, lemon. 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes