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Boiled Tongue

A boiled tongue served hot or cold, seasoned with salt, onion, vinegar, and walnut catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 865 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Boiled Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the tongue

  1. Place the fresh tongue in boiling water.

  2. Boil for 2 hours.

  3. Add the salt.

  4. Continue boiling until a fork slips in easily.

  5. Remove as much water as possible without burning the tongue.

  6. Skim off the floating fat.

Make the sauce

  1. Add the sliced onion, vinegar, and walnut catsup.

  2. Simmer for a few moments.

  3. Remove the tongue.

  4. Peel off the skin.

Serve

  1. Place the tongue on a hot platter.

  2. Pour over some of the hot liquid thickened with flour.

  3. Serve hot.

  4. For cold serving, place in a deep dish, cover with liquid, and cool quickly.

  5. When ready to serve cold, remove and wipe dry.

  6. Slice and garnish with parsley.

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. Walnut + parsleytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together865 recipes

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh tongue
Forms the main meat, which becomes tender through long simmering in water.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the rich meat and liquid.
Walnut catsup
Contributes a concentrated savoury, tangy flavour to the cooking liquid.
Flour
Thickens the hot cooking liquid into a light sauce for pouring over the tongue.

The step that matters

Continue boiling until a fork slips in easily. Tongue is a tough, muscular meat, and only long, gentle simmering breaks down its connective tissue. Stopping early leaves it firm and chewy, while a hard boil can toughen and dry the meat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, walnut, flour, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, walnut, flour, parsley. 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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