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TONGUE, STEWED (another way)
Simmer the tongue for two hours in just enough water to cover it; peel it, and return it to the water, adding some pepper, mace, and cloves tied up in a piece of muslin. Cut some turnips and capers very small, slice some carrots, and add these also to the liquor with half a pint of beef gravy, a wine-glassful of white wine, and a bunch of sweet herbs. Stew all together very gently for an hour and a half longer; take out the spice and sweet herbs, and thicken the gravy with flour worked into a small piece of butter.
A straightforward braise, but it assumes a whole ox tongue and a cook who knows that the skin comes off while the meat is hot. Two details matter more than the rest: peel it the moment it is cool enough to handle, and keep the second stage at a bare simmer.
- Which tongueUnqualified "tongue" here is most likely a whole ox (beef) tongue, of the order of 3-4 lb, and it may be fresh or salted — Victorian butchers sold both. If yours has been brined or corned, soak it in cold water for several hours and change the water once, or the finished gravy will be too salty to serve.
- Peel while hotAfter the first two hours, lift the tongue out and strip the thick outer skin immediately, working from the tip back. Once it cools the skin sets and clings, and you will lose meat pulling it off. Trim the gristly root end at the same time.
- Cooking time is a minimumThree and a half hours total will suit a small tongue. A large one wants longer — test with a skewer at the thickest part, which should meet no resistance. Under-cooked tongue is unpleasantly firm and no amount of gravy disguises it.
- MeasuresHalf a pint imperial is 10 imperial fl oz, about 1¼ US cups. A wine-glassful of the period is usually reckoned at around 2 fl oz. Good beef stock stands in for the gravy.
- CapersCapers need no cutting unless you have the large caperberries; nonpareils go in whole. Add them near the end rather than at the start of the hour and a half, or their vinegar sharpness cooks flat.
- The spice bagWhole mace (blade mace, not ground) with a few peppercorns and three or four cloves in muslin is right; ground spice will cloud the liquor and cannot be fished out. "A bunch of sweet herbs" is parsley, thyme and a bay leaf tied with string.
- ThickeningFlour worked into butter is beurre manié — equal weights, kneaded cold, whisked into the simmering liquor in small pieces. About 1 oz of each will thicken a pint. Let it bubble a couple of minutes to lose the raw flour taste.
- ServingA whole ox tongue serves six to eight. Carve it across the grain in slanting slices, starting at the tip where the meat is finest, and spoon the vegetables and gravy over.
Boiled and stewed tongue was ordinary domestic food in nineteenth-century Britain, not a curiosity: an ox tongue was cheap, fed a large table, and kept well once cooked and pressed, which is why Cassell's gives several methods and why cold pressed tongue turns up so often on Victorian supper and picnic menus. The seasoning here blade mace, cloves, a bundle of sweet herbs, a glass of white wine, capers for sharpness is the standard English brown-braise palette inherited from eighteenth-century cookery, in which mace is often said to have done much of the work now given to nutmeg. The instruction to thicken with flour kneaded into butter rather than a cooked roux is likewise older English practice, and it survives in professional kitchens as beurre manié. The recipe does not bother to say whether the tongue is fresh or salted, and the cook was presumably expected to judge the soaking for herself.