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Baked Tongue

A cured and slow-baked beef tongue served cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Baked Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cure

  1. Season the tongue with coarse sea salt, saltpetre, brown sugar, black pepper, ground cloves, ground mace, and allspice.

  2. Let it cure for two weeks.

  3. After curing, remove the seasoning and place the tongue in a small pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Spread butter over the tongue, cover it with brown crust, and bake slowly at 300°F (150°C) until tender.

  2. Serve cold.

  3. It will keep for a week.

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. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Tongue
The main protein; slow baking turns its tough muscle tender.
Saltpetre
Helps the meat keep its pink colour during curing.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat during the long cure.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture to the surface as the tongue bakes.

The step that matters

Bake slowly until tender. Tongue is dense connective tissue. Low, slow heat gives collagen time to break down into gelatin, so the meat turns tender rather than dry and tough.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, pepper, clove, allspice, 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.

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