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Reindeer Tongue, to Boil
Soak the tongue in cold water for three hours. Put it in an airy situation till dry, then soak it again, and repeat this process three times. When it is to be cooked scrape it well, put it into a saucepan with as much cold water as will cover it, bring it slowly to the boil, and skim it well. Draw the saucepan to the side, and simmer the tongue until it is tender. Serve on a neatly-folded table-napkin, and garnish the dish with parsley. Time to simmer, three hours. Sufficient for a small breakfast or luncheon dish.
This is a method for a salted and dried tongue rather than a fresh one, which is why it opens with three days' worth of soaking. Read the whole thing as a desalting procedure followed by a long, gentle simmer.
- Why the repeated soakingReindeer tongues reached British kitchens salted and often smoked or air-dried, packed in barrels or tins. The alternating soak-and-dry cycles draw out salt gradually; a fresh tongue needs none of this and can go straight into the pot.
- "An airy situation"A cool, draughty larder or a hook in a chimney corner. In a modern kitchen, a rack in the refrigerator uncovered for a few hours achieves the same surface drying without risk.
- Sourcing and substitutionSalted reindeer tongue is not a supermarket item. Reindeer is farmed and legally sold in Scandinavia and sometimes exported, but an ox tongue (3 lb or so) or two or three lamb tongues take the same treatment, allowing for the difference in size when judging the simmering time.
- Simmer, never boilThis is the hinge. Tongue is dense muscle held together with connective tissue; a rolling boil tightens the fibres and leaves it stringy, while water held at a bare tremble, around 180-190F, turns the collagen to gelatine. "Draw the saucepan to the side" means off the hottest part of the range.
- Skinning, which the original omitsEvery boiled tongue needs its thick outer skin peeled off, and it only comes away easily while the meat is still hot. Lift it out, slit the skin along the underside and strip it, then trim the gristle at the root.
- Testing for doneThree hours is a guide, not a rule; size and cure vary. A skewer should slide into the thickest part with no resistance, and the tip of the tongue should feel yielding rather than springy.
- Taste the waterAfter the soaking cycles, taste a spoonful of the cooking water once it is hot. If it is aggressively salty, change it and start again, or the finished tongue will be inedible.
- ServingThe folded napkin was a familiar Victorian way of sending up dry or drained dishes, and is usually explained as absorbing moisture at table. Slice the tongue thinly on the diagonal, or press it under a weighted plate overnight and serve cold with mustard.
- YieldA single reindeer tongue serves two or three; an ox tongue treated the same way will feed six to eight, especially if pressed and sliced cold.
Reindeer tongue was one of the northern luxuries that the Victorian import trade brought within reach of London kitchens. Salted and smoked tongues came south from Lapland and Norway alongside other preserved northern meats, and turned up on breakfast and luncheon tables as a novelty. That the book gives it a straightforward entry says a good deal about the period's confidence: a well-stocked household was expected to know what to do with whatever arrived in a barrel of brine. The technique itself is older and entirely general, being the usual treatment for salted tongue of any kind before refrigeration made curing optional; the long soak, the slow simmer and the peeling of the skin while hot applied to ox, lamb and pig tongues as much as to reindeer.