Skip to main content
Main

Tongue Toast

A toast topped with a creamy boiled tongue mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Tongue Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the topping

  1. Once the tongue is boiled and completely cooled, grate or mince it very finely.

  2. Mix the tongue with the cream, beaten egg yolk, and mustard.

  3. Simmer the mixture for 2 to 3 minutes.

Make the toast

  1. Cut off the crusts from the bread slices and toast them until golden.

  2. Butter the toasted bread slices generously.

Assemble and serve

  1. Heat a flat dish, place the toast on it, and spread the tongue mixture on top.

  2. Serve hot in a covered dish.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Mustard + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Tongue
Provides the savoury meat base that forms the body of the topping.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the topping soft and spreadable.
Egg yolk
Thickens the mixture when gently simmered, giving it a set, creamy texture.
Mixed mustard
Adds sharpness that cuts through the richness of the cream and meat.
Bread
Forms the crisp, toasted base that holds the topping.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the toast and helps it brown.

The step that matters

Simmer the mixture gently. Egg yolk thickens when heated but can scramble if it boils too hard, leaving a grainy topping. Low, gentle heat for the stated 2 to 3 minutes keeps it smooth and spreadable.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, egg, bread, butter):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, bread, butter. 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

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes