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Sheep's Tongues with Asparagus

A savory dish of braised sheep tongues served with asparagus and a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and carrot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sheep's Tongues with Asparagus

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the onion and carrot into small pieces.

  2. Sprinkle some of the vegetables in a baking dish.

Assemble and cook

  1. Place the sheep's tongues on top of the vegetables.

  2. Add the remaining vegetables on top of the tongues.

  3. Pour in a little water or stock and cover.

  4. Cream together the butter and flour.

  5. Add the butter‑flour mixture to the dish.

  6. Cook for 10 minutes.

  7. Add the asparagus.

  8. Turn the asparagus into the center of the dish.

  9. Ensure there is just enough sauce to hold the asparagus together.

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. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + asparagustop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together571 recipes

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

  3. Onion + asparagustop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,212 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + asparagustop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Sheep's tongues
The main protein, which becomes tender through slow, covered cooking in liquid.
Butter and flour
Creamed together to form a roux-style mixture that thickens the sauce.
Onion and carrot
Aromatic vegetables that flavour the cooking liquid and sauce.
Asparagus
Adds fresh vegetable texture and colour, held together by the sauce.

The step that matters

Ensure there is just enough sauce to hold the asparagus together. Too little liquid leaves the asparagus dry and loose, while too much thins the dish. The butter-flour mixture thickens the liquid, so the amount of sauce controls how well the asparagus holds together.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, flour, asparagus):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, flour, asparagus. 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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