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Tongue, Potted
Take the remains of a cold boiled tongue. Remove all the hard parts, cut the meat into small pieces, and afterwards pound it to a smooth paste; season with cayenne, and beat with it one-fourth of its weight in clarified butter. Press it into small jars, cover it about a quarter of an inch deep with clarified butter, melted dripping, or melted suet, and let it stand three or four hours before it is used. A smaller proportion of butter will be required if a little of the fat of the tongue is used instead of lean only, but the butter must not be entirely dispensed with. Some cooks season the meat by degrees with a tea-spoonful of mixed mustard, a salt-spoonful of white pepper, a pinch of cayenne, and as much grated nutmeg as will cover a threepenny piece to each pound of tongue. Potted tongue is excellent when pounded with its weight in well-dressed cold chicken, cold veal, or cold partridge. Time--the tongue to be pounded till reduced to a perfectly smooth paste.
A Victorian way of using up the last of a boiled ox tongue: pound it fine, work in fat, and seal it under more fat. The proportions matter more than the technique.
- The hinge: fat is not optionalThe recipe insists the butter cannot be left out, and it is right. Lean tongue pounded alone sets into a dry, crumbling brick; the fat is what carries the seasoning and gives the paste its spreadable texture. One-fourth of the meat's weight in clarified butter is the working minimum, less only if you include some of the tongue's own fat.
- Pounding, then and now"Pounded till reduced to a perfectly smooth paste" meant sustained work in a mortar. A food processor does it in a minute or two, but pulse the meat first, then add the soft clarified butter and run it until genuinely smooth — stopping short leaves a grainy paste.
- Old measuresA salt-spoon is usually reckoned at about a quarter teaspoon. "As much grated nutmeg as will cover a threepenny piece" — the Victorian silver threepence was around 16 mm across — comes to something on the order of an eighth of a teaspoon: a genuine pinch, not a shake.
- Mixed mustardThis is English mustard powder already made up with water, i.e. prepared English mustard, which is considerably hotter than a Dijon or a wholegrain. Use about a teaspoon per pound of meat as directed and taste before adding more.
- Clarified butterMelt unsalted butter gently, skim the foam, and pour off the clear fat, leaving the milky solids behind. The solids are what spoil first, which is precisely why the period recipes specify clarified butter for the seal. Melted dripping or suet works but will taste distinctly of beef and set much harder.
- Storage, which the original glosses overA sealed pot of potted meat was once kept in a cool larder for weeks. Treat this as a fresh spread instead: refrigerate it and eat within three or four days. The airless layer of fat over cooked meat is exactly the condition that favours anaerobic bacteria at room temperature, and there is no salt or acid here doing preservative work.
- Serving and yieldA pound of tongue with its butter fills several small pots and is plenty for a dozen sandwiches or a plate of toast for six. Let it come to room temperature for twenty minutes before spreading, or the butter will tear the bread.
- The variations are worth taking seriouslyTongue pounded with an equal weight of cold chicken, veal or partridge is milder and less salty than tongue alone, and closer to modern taste. Adjust the cayenne upward slightly if you dilute it this way.
Potting was one of the standard British answers to a large joint before refrigeration: cook the meat, reduce it to a paste, and shut the air out under a cap of clarified butter or suet, which kept it edible in a cold larder far longer than the sliced meat would have lasted. Ox tongue was a natural candidate — a whole boiled tongue was a common Victorian cold-table centrepiece, and it always left ends and trimmings too handsome to waste. Potted tongue was also sold commercially in glazed pots and, later, in tins; the descendants are the meat and fish pastes still sold in small jars in Britain. The threepenny-piece measure for nutmeg is a reminder that many kitchens had coins to hand more reliably than graded spoons.