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Hash with Tongue and Brains

A savory hash made with tongue, brains, forcemeat balls, egg balls, and seasoned with herbs, served with bacon and fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Hash with Tongue and Brains

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the head

  1. Remove the bone from the half head of meat and score it superficially.

  2. Beat an egg and brush it over the meat.

  3. Sprinkle the meat with grated bread, lemon peel, thyme, and finely chopped parsley.

  4. Cover the meat with bread crumbs.

  5. Place the meat in a 400°F (200°C) oven to brown.

Make the hash

  1. Cut the other half head into slices.

  2. Place the sliced head in a stew pan with gravy or turtle sauce, forcemeat balls, egg balls, white wine, and some ketchup.

  3. Add the meat, warm together, and skim off the fat.

  4. Peel the tongue and serve it with the brains as a side dish.

Make the brain cakes and serve

  1. Mix the brains with flour, eggs, lemon peel, thyme, parsley, pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  2. Fry the mixture in small cakes until light brown.

  3. Serve the hash with the browned half head in the center, garnished with bacon rashers, fried bread sippets, and brain cakes.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  4. White wine + thymetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,503 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 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

Eggs
Bind the brain mixture and, when beaten and brushed on, help the crumb coating adhere and brown.
Flour
Helps the brain mixture hold together so the cakes keep their shape when fried.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust over the meat in the oven.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the sauce, balancing the richness of the meat and gravy.

The step that matters

Fry the brain cakes until light brown. Brains are soft and delicate, so the mixture can fall apart or burn. Flour and egg bind it, and moderate heat lets the outside set and brown before the centre is cooked through.

“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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