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Sheep's Tongues, with Cabbage Let-Tuces
The tongues are first of all to be braised. Take a dozen and a half good cabbage-lettuces, wash them very clean, and blanch them. When they are cold, and you have squeezed all the water out of them, open them in two, take off the stalks, powder a little salt and pepper over the lettuces; shut them, and give them a good form; place them in a stewpan and surround with layers of bacon; moisten with a little braise, or anything to give them a good taste; otherwise take the "pot-top," with a little broth and salt. When the lettuces are quite done, drain them, and squeeze them in a cloth to extract the grease. Dish them in rosettes, first a tongue, then a lettuce, and so on successively. Put a large tongue in the centre to improve the look of the rosette. Another time cut the tongues in two, and dish them miroton way--that is, one half of a tongue, and lettuce, alternately. In this case, put mixed vegetables in the centre, and cover both the tongues and the lettuce with Spanish sauce.
A composed platter rather than a single dish: braised tongues and braised lettuce hearts alternated in a ring. The recipe assumes you have already braised the tongues by another entry in the book, and that a stockpot is standing on the range.
- The tongues come firstSheep's (lamb's) tongues may be sold brined; if so, soak in several changes of cold water, then cook in aromatic stock until a skewer meets no resistance, upwards of two hours. Peel off the tough outer skin while they are still hot, as it comes away far less easily once cold.
- Cabbage-lettuceNot cabbage, but the firm-hearted heading lettuce of the period. A dense butterhead or the trimmed heart of a romaine is the closest thing now; loose-leaf lettuce collapses to nothing and is no use here.
- Blanch, then wringThirty seconds to a minute in boiling salted water, then straight into cold. The squeezing is not optional at either stage: water left in the head dilutes the braise, and grease left in at the end makes the finished lettuce greasy on the plate.
- "A little braise"In this book braise is a noun as well as a verb, meaning the rich cooking liquor of fat, stock and aromatics used for braising. Well-reduced brown stock does the same work.
- "Pot-top"The fat and skimmings from the top of the stockpot. A spoonful of rendered fat with broth gives the same effect.
- Layers of baconThin sheets of fatty unsmoked bacon or pork fat lining the pan, above and below the lettuces, to keep them moist and add savour. Streaky bacon works, though smoked bacon will dominate the lettuce.
- MirotonAn arrangement of overlapping slices in a ring or fan. Here it simply means alternating half-tongues and lettuces around the dish.
- Spanish sauceEspagnole: brown roux moistened with brown stock and simmered long with mirepoix, and in later versions tomato, until glossy. Any well-made reduced brown sauce serves.
- YieldEighteen lettuces is banquet scale; the recipe does not state how many tongues. Scale to three lettuces and three tongues for four, keeping one whole tongue for the centre.
Sheep's tongues were cheap, plentiful and prized for their neatness of shape, which is exactly why they appear in a dish built on symmetry: a ring of small, uniform, dark-glazed objects alternating with pale green ones was the sort of table effect nineteenth-century service prized above almost anything. The technique behind it is the grande cuisine braise, in which a fatty lining, a reduced stock and slow moist heat are used on things that would otherwise be dry or dull, lettuce included. Braised lettuce, now a rarity outside French kitchens, was then a standard garnish, treated much as one would treat endive or celery hearts.