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TONGUE, DRESDEN (a German recipe)
Procure a fresh bullock's tongue, wash well, and wipe it quite dry. Put a large piece of butter into a stewpan, which must be deep enough to close well when the meat is in. Dredge in some flour; put the tongue in; let it brown nicely on one side, then turn it. When nicely browned all over, season it well; add a pint and a half of water. Cover close, and let it simmer--not boil--three hours and a half. Add more water if the gravy wastes much. There must be enough left to serve with the tongue, which is eaten hot with potatoes, but it is equally good cold. Garnish and serve with slices of lemon.
A plain pot-braise of a whole unsalted beef tongue, browned in butter and left to steam under a tight lid. The technique is sound; the details worth knowing are about the cut itself.
- "Bullock's tongue"A whole beef tongue, fresh rather than brined or smoked — butchers and Latin American or Eastern European markets sell them, usually 3 to 4 lb. Check the label: tongue is often sold cured, which would make this dish far too salty.
- Peel it after, not beforeThe recipe says nothing about the thick outer skin. Leave it on through the braise, then peel it off while the tongue is still hot; it slips away in sheets. Cold, it welds itself on.
- Wash wellRinse under cold running water and trim the gristle, small bones and fat at the root end. Some cooks soak it an hour in cold water first to draw out blood.
- A pint and a halfAn imperial pint and a half is 30 fl oz, about 850 ml or roughly 3½ US cups. A tight lid matters more than the exact quantity — much of the cooking is done by trapped steam, and the recipe assumes a stewpan whose lid seals ("deep enough to close well").
- Simmer, not boilThe one instruction that carries the dish. Tongue is dense muscle that wants a bare tremble, around 180–195°F, for hours. A rolling boil tightens the fibres and leaves it stringy.
- TimingThree and a half hours suits a small tongue. Test rather than clock-watch: a skewer should slide into the thickest part with no resistance, and the skin should peel freely. A 4 lb tongue can want four hours or more.
- Season it wellUnspecified in the original, which assumed salt and pepper as a matter of course. Salt generously — an uncured tongue takes a lot — and the braise welcomes a bay leaf, a few cloves, an onion and a little of the lemon whose slices garnish the finished dish.
- The gravyThe flour dredged in at the start thickens the pan liquid as it reduces. Strain and skim it before serving; there will be a good deal of butter fat on top.
- YieldA 3 lb tongue serves six to eight hot. Cold, pressed under a weighted plate overnight and sliced thin, it is the better dish and will feed more.
Boiled or braised tongue was ordinary rather than exotic in Victorian and Edwardian Britain — a cheap, meaty cut that carved neatly and kept well. The "Dresden" label marks it as German in method: browned in butter and flour and shut into a sealed pot with a small amount of liquid, closer to a Schmorbraten than to the English habit of simmering a cured tongue in a great deal of water and pressing it into a round tin. Cassell's, like most of the big late-nineteenth-century compendia, harvested such recipes from continental cookery and printed them with a nationality attached. The lemon garnish and the note that it is "equally good cold" both point at the tongue's real role in the period household: a joint cooked once and eaten across several meals, hot from the pot, then cold from the larder.