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Beef Tongues

A preserved beef tongue pickled in a salt, sugar, and saltpetre brine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 37% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,435 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Beef Tongues

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off the root of the beef tongue, leaving some fat.

  2. Cover it with salt in an earthenware dish for 24 hours.

  3. Pour off the slimy matter.

Cure with the dry mixture

  1. Rub the tongue with a mixture of salt, sugar, and saltpetre.

  2. Turn the tongue daily for a week.

  3. Rub the tongue daily.

  4. Renew the mixture after that week.

Brine and finish

  1. Dissolve 1 pound of salt, 1 pound of sugar, 3 ounces of saltpetre, and 3 ounces of salt prunella in 1 gallon of water.

  2. Submerge the tongue in the brine, ensuring it is fully covered.

  3. Let it sit for 2 weeks.

  4. After 2 weeks, remove the tongue.

  5. Rub it dry.

  6. Hang it up to keep or use it directly from the pickle.

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. Beef + sugartop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef tongue
Is the meat being cured, so its texture firms and holds up through the long pickling.
Salt
Draws out moisture and slime and preserves the meat during curing.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the salt and softens the harsh salty taste of the cure.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the meat and gives cured meat its characteristic pink colour.

The step that matters

Submerge the tongue fully in the brine. Any part left above the brine can spoil or cure unevenly, because the salt and nitrate only preserve meat they fully reach.

“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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