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To Cure Tongues

A method of curing beef tongues with salt, sugar, saltpetre, pepper, garlic, and smoking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

To Cure Tongues

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the gills from the tongue and leave some fat underneath.

  2. Soak the tongue in salt and water overnight and clean it well.

  3. Sprinkle the tongue with salt and let it drain until the next day.

Cure

  1. Mix the common salt, coarse sugar, saltpetre, ground pepper, and chopped garlic.

  2. Rub the mixture into the tongue and repeat daily for a week.

  3. After a week, add another tablespoon of salt.

  4. The tongue will be ready in 10 days if rubbed daily.

Dry, smoke and cook

  1. For drying, write the date on parchment and tie it on.

  2. Smoke the tongue for 3 days or hang it in a dry place.

  3. To cook, boil the tongue until tender, about 5 hours.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and clove barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 17,182 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Tongue
The main meat, which becomes firm and sliceable as it cures and dries.
Common salt
Draws out moisture and carries the cure through the meat, helping preserve it.
Saltpetre
Curing agent that helps preserve the meat and gives it a pink colour.
Coarse sugar
Balances the sharpness of the salt and softens the flavour of the cure.
Garlic
Adds aroma and savoury flavour to the cure.

The step that matters

Rub the cure in daily for a week. Salt and curing agents must penetrate the meat gradually. Skipping days or rubbing unevenly leaves parts under-cured and more prone to spoilage.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, pepper):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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