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To Boil a Beef Tongue

A boiled beef tongue seasoned with red pepper, cloves, allspice, and peppercorns.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

To Boil a Beef Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the tongue overnight.

  2. Wash the tongue and place it in a pot of water.

  3. Add red pepper, cloves, allspice, and whole peppercorns.

Cook and serve

  1. Bring to a boil quickly, then reduce heat and simmer for 4 hours.

  2. Remove from heat and let cool.

  3. Trim off the skin and slice very thinly to serve.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  5. Beef + clovetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef tongue
Forms the main body of the dish; long simmering turns its tough muscle tender.
Red pepper
Adds heat and a warm, pungent note to the cooking liquid.
Cloves
Add a warm, aromatic flavor to the simmering liquid.
Allspice berries
Contribute a warm, mixed-spice aroma to the broth and meat.
Whole peppercorns
Add a sharp, aromatic bite that seasons the liquid during simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 4 hours. A rolling boil toughens and dries the meat's proteins, while a gentle simmer slowly breaks down connective tissue into gelatin, leaving the tongue tender and moist.

“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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