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Bullock's Tongue, with Piquante Sauce
Many people forget, or do not, perhaps, know, that an ox tongue may be served in many different ways besides cold boiled. The following makes a handsome dish, and where people are accustomed to Continental cookery will be sure to be appreciated. Wash a fine tongue in cold and then throw it into boiling water. Let it boil for half an hour; take it out, drain, put it into a clean pan, and cover with cold water. Simmer it for two hours, then add two or three carrots, turnips, a bunch of celery, and sweet herbs; simmer another hour, remove the tongue and skin it. Next, get a stewpan, and put into it some small onions, two bay-leaves, a few cloves, peppercorns, a sprig of thyme, a slice of ham, and a scraped carrot, with about a quart of the liquor the tongue was boiled in. Place the tongue in last of all, cover down tightly, and stew two hours. When done, put the tongue on a hot dish. Thicken the sauce with flour, mustard, and scraped horse-radish (a very small quantity); give it one boil, pour over the tongue, and serve. When too large for a small party, cut the tongue in half before stewing it. The one half may be served as directed, and the other half may be pressed into a mould, covered with a glaze, and served cold for breakfast, lunch, etc. Probable cost of a tongue, 5s. to 6s. One-half sufficient for five or six persons.
A long braise in three stages: a blanch, a poach in vegetables, then a slow stew in its own broth. Nothing here is difficult, but the timings are generous and the one step that cannot be delayed is skinning.
- Skin it hotThe rough outer membrane peels away cleanly the moment the tongue leaves the poaching liquid, and refuses to once it cools. Hold it in a towel, slit the skin along the underside, and strip it while it is too hot to be comfortable. Trim the gristle and small bones at the root end at the same time.
- Fresh or curedA Victorian kitchen bought tongue both fresh and salted (pickled in brine, often with saltpetre, which turns it pink). The initial half-hour boil-and-discard here suits either, but a cured tongue should be soaked several hours in cold water first or the finished sauce will be inedibly salty. Supermarket beef tongue today is usually fresh; ask the butcher.
- Weight and total timeA whole beef tongue runs 3-4 lb. Blanch 30 minutes, simmer 2 hours, another hour with the vegetables, then 2 hours in the stewpan — around five and a half hours. Judge doneness by feel rather than clock: a skewer should meet no resistance at the thick end.
- The stewing pan"Cover down tightly" matters. Use a lidded pan just large enough to hold the tongue, with the quart of broth coming partway up; a wide pan risks boiling the liquor away before the two hours are out. The recipe stews on the stove; a low oven will hold a steadier simmer if your burner runs hot.
- Thickening the sauceFlour stirred straight into hot liquid will lump. Work about 2 tablespoons of flour into an equal weight of soft butter and whisk it in in pieces, then give it the single boil the recipe calls for. The recipe adds the mustard and horseradish before that boil; if you want their sharpness to carry, stir them in off the heat, as prolonged boiling flattens both.
- Horseradish"A very small quantity" is meant seriously: a teaspoon of freshly scraped root in a pint of sauce. Jarred horseradish is packed in vinegar and will read as sourness rather than heat; drain it if that is what you have.
- The cold halfTo press the second half, pack it hot into a straight-sided bowl or loaf tin, weight it with a plate and tins, and chill overnight. The reduced cooking liquor sets to a natural jelly and is the "glaze" meant here; there is no need for a commercial aspic.
- Yield and costThe book's five or six persons per half-tongue is about right as part of a larger meal; count on four for a main course. The 5s. to 6s. is a late-Victorian price for a whole tongue.
"Piquante" is one of the classical French sharp brown sauces — a base moistened with stock and pointed up with something acid, here mustard and horseradish rather than the more usual vinegar and chopped gherkins. Cassell's frames the dish explicitly as a corrective, the author arguing that "people accustomed to Continental cookery" know ox tongue will take a hot service and a made sauce. The three-stage cooking — blanch, poach with roots, then stew on a bed of ham, onion and bay — follows what is generally described as the braising practice of the period, the ham slice acting as a source of salt and gelatine in place of a concentrated stock. The instruction to split a large tongue and press half for the next morning is the same thrift that runs through the whole dictionary: one long cooking, two separate meals.