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Sheep's Tongues, with Turnips
Take eight tongues of an equal size; let them disgorge in a little water and flour, and next blanch them. When thoroughly blanched, put them in a stewpan to braize. In case you should have a haricot of beef, or of mutton, or other meat, they will all equally answer the purpose for sheep's tongues: when the latter are done, peel them, and cut them in two. Dish them miroton way, and cover with the sauce of the haricot, the turnips of course being put in the middle. It is customary in French cookery to call anything made with turnips haricot.
A French braise written in shorthand for cooks who already had a stockpot going. The recipe assumes you have a haricot — a turnip stew of beef or mutton — already on the stove, and treats the tongues as something to poach alongside it and dress with its sauce.
- The hinge: peel them hotSheep's tongues shed their rough outer skin only while they are steaming hot from the braise. Let them cool in the liquid and the skin sets fast; lift each one out, hold it in a cloth and strip the skin immediately, then return it to the pan.
- "Disgorge in a little water and flour"A cold soak to draw out blood. Two to three hours in cold water, changed once, does much the same job; the flour is optional.
- "Blanch"In older cookery, blanching offal generally means a parboil from cold water rather than a brief dip — commonly a quarter of an hour or so, skimming the grey scum, then draining and rinsing.
- Braising timeNo time is given. Eight small tongues will take somewhere around 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours at a bare simmer, covered, in stock or the haricot liquor; they are done when a skewer meets no resistance at the thick root end.
- "Haricot"Nothing to do with beans. As the last line says, in nineteenth-century French kitchen usage a haricot is a stew of meat cut in pieces with root vegetables, turnips above all. If you are not making one, braise the tongues in good stock and glaze turnips separately in butter, stock and a pinch of sugar, then reduce the braising liquid for the sauce.
- "Dish them miroton way"Sliced pieces overlapped in a ring or spiral around the edge of the dish, cut faces up, with the garnish heaped in the centre. Split lengthwise, the halves lie flat and shingle neatly.
- SourcingLamb tongues are no longer standard supermarket stock but are routinely available from halal and Middle Eastern butchers, often frozen in packs. Ask for them of even size, as the recipe specifies, or the small ones overcook.
- Seasoning and yieldThe original names no salt, presumably because the haricot supplied it; taste the braising liquid before it reduces, as it will concentrate. Eight tongues split in two should serve about four as a main course.
The word haricot here is the older culinary sense, generally traced to the verb haricoter or the older form halicot, meaning to cut into small pieces — a haricot of mutton was meat cut up and stewed with turnips, a usage older than the bean of the same name; hence the closing sentence of this entry. Sheep's tongues were cheap and plentiful and, being small and uniform, well suited to the kind of decorative arrangement Victorian dinner service demanded; miroton dishing, with slices overlapped in a ring around a central garnish, makes something presentable out of inexpensive offal.