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Ox Tongue, Fresh, Roasted
Soak the tongue, and boil it gently for about three hours. Drain it, take off the skin, trim the root neatly, stick about a dozen cloves into it, and roast the tongue before a clear fire, basting it well with good dripping or butter. Serve on a hot dish, and send half a pint of good brown gravy to table with it. If preferred, the tongue may be egged and bread-crumbed before being roasted. Red currant jelly should be eaten with roasted tongue. Time to roast, half an hour. Probable cost, 4s. to 6s. Sufficient for eight or nine persons.
A two-stage treatment: the tongue is boiled until tender, then finished in front of the fire for colour and crust. The oven does the second stage perfectly well, but the first stage is where the dish is won or lost.
- Fresh, not cured"Fresh" here distinguishes the tongue from the pickled or smoked ox tongue that was a common shop item. Tongue is often sold brined, so ask specifically for an unsalted one; a whole ox tongue will usually run to several pounds.
- The hinge: peel it hotThe rough outer skin lifts away cleanly only while the tongue is still steaming. Let it cool and the skin bonds to the meat and has to be cut off, taking good flesh with it.
- Judge by the skewer, not the clockThree hours is a fair estimate for a large tongue, but size varies widely. It is done when a skewer passes into the thickest part with no resistance and the tip of the skin rubs loose under your thumb.
- "Boil it gently"Taken literally a rolling boil will make the meat stringy. Bring to the boil, skim, then hold at a bare shiver for the whole time.
- Roasting before a clear fireThat means a spit set in front of an open, flame-free bed of coals, turned and basted. The book gives no oven setting; if you use one, a hot oven for the same half hour is a reasonable substitute, basting two or three times with dripping.
- The gravy measureHalf a pint is an imperial half-pint, 10 fl oz, or a scant 1 1/4 US cups. "Good brown gravy" of this period is generally a stock-based sauce rather than a pan-drippings gravy.
- Egged and crumbedThe alternative finish is a coating of beaten egg then fine dry breadcrumbs before roasting. It browns faster than bare meat, so watch it from about twenty minutes.
- Yield and trimEight or nine portions is realistic for a whole tongue once the root is trimmed. The trimmed root end and cooking liquor are worth keeping for soup.
Ox tongue was a standard piece of Victorian household economy: feeding eight or nine at the four to six shillings quoted here, and useful hot or pressed cold. Cassell's flags this one as fresh, and the boil-then-roast method borrows the older English treatment of a large joint that needs tenderising before it will take a fire. The dozen cloves stuck into the meat and the red currant jelly alongside both belong to the long British habit of pairing rich, gelatinous meat with something sharp or aromatic, the same logic that puts jelly beside mutton and venison. Offal of this kind fell out of general use in Britain across the twentieth century, and whole fresh tongue is now largely a special order rather than a counter staple.