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Smoked Tongue

A stew of smoked beef tongue with tomatoes, onion, cloves, allspice, black and red pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Smoked Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the smoked beef tongue until tender.

  2. Remove the skin and place the tongue in a frying pan.

  3. Add the mashed and strained tomatoes, chopped onion, cloves, allspice, and both black and red pepper.

  4. Stew until the tongue is well seasoned and the dressing is the consistency of gravy, basting frequently.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Smoked beef tongue
Is the main meat that is cooked until tender and seasoned by stewing.
Mashed and strained tomatoes
Form the liquid base of the dressing, which thickens into a gravy-like consistency as it stews.
Onion
Adds savory aromatic flavor to the tomato dressing as it cooks.

The step that matters

Stew until the dressing is the consistency of gravy. The tomato liquid must reduce slowly while the tongue is basted. Stewing too briskly can scorch the bottom of the pan, and stopping early leaves the sauce thin and under-seasoned.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, tomato, clove, allspice, 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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