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NEAT'S TONGUE (au Gratin)
Having cut up a boiled or roasted tongue into thin slices, put into the dish in which they are to be sent to table a little broth, a dish of vinegar, some capers, parsley, chives, shallots, and chervil, all chopped very fine, salt, whole pepper, and the raspings of bread. Arrange the slices of tongue neatly on this seasoning, and put more over them, finishing with bread raspings, and bake in a Dutch oven till lightly browned. Pour a little broth over it, and serve. Probable cost, 3s. 6d. to 4s. 6d. each. (See also OX TONGUE.)
A reheating dish for cooked tongue, built on the same logic as any gratin: the meat is already done, so the oven's only job is to brown the crumbs. Everything else is seasoning.
- Neat's tongue"Neat" is the old word for cattle, so this is beef tongue — the same cut the book indexes under OX TONGUE. A whole one runs 3-4 lb and must be simmered or braised for around 3 hours and peeled before it can be sliced; this recipe assumes that work is already done.
- The hingeThe tongue is cooked. Bake only until the crumb topping colours, roughly 15-20 minutes at 400F, or a few minutes under a broiler. Longer and thin slices of tongue turn dry and grainy.
- Dutch ovenIn this period a Dutch oven is usually a tin reflector oven set open-side to the fire, browning by radiant heat from above and in front. A conventional oven at 400F with a final minute under the broiler gives the same effect.
- Bread raspingsDried crusts rasped or grated to fine crumbs — drier and sandier than fresh breadcrumbs, closer to commercial dry breadcrumbs. Toss them with a little melted butter or they will scorch before they colour evenly.
- "A dish of vinegar"Genuinely ambiguous, and not a standard measure. Given the small amount of broth and the fact that the acid is a seasoning rather than a braising liquid, a tablespoon or two of wine vinegar is in keeping; more will overwhelm the herbs.
- Whole pepperWhole peppercorns in a gratin are unpleasant to bite. Crack them coarsely, or use coarsely ground black pepper.
- Fines herbesParsley, chives and chervil belong to the classic French fines herbes; the fourth herb is usually tarragon rather than shallot, though older French usage sometimes counted shallot among them. Chervil is the one likely to be missing from a supermarket; a little tarragon plus extra parsley stands in reasonably, though the flavour shifts.
- BrothBeef stock, unsalted or lightly salted, since the tongue itself is usually well seasoned from its cooking liquid. The spoonful poured over at the end is there to keep the dish from being dry, not to make a sauce.
- Yield and costA sliced tongue of this size serves 6-8 as a hot dish. The "probable cost, 3s. 6d. to 4s. 6d." is Victorian retail pricing for a whole tongue and is of historical interest only.
Tongue was a staple of the Victorian larder rather than a curiosity: sold both fresh and salted, and easy to cook in quantity, it appeared boiled and pressed for cold suppers, in sandwiches, and in made dishes like this one. Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery is organised alphabetically as a reference work, which is why the same ingredient turns up in a dozen entries — here the au gratin treatment dresses an already-cooked tongue with fines herbes, capers and vinegar and browns it under radiant heat. The French term au gratin refers to the crust itself and is generally derived from gratter, to scrape; the shallow round dish now called a gratin took its name from the technique, not the reverse.