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Tongues, Glazed
The appearance of cold boiled tongue is very greatly improved by glazing. Glaze may either be made at home (see GLAZE)--which is rather a difficult operation, as it may be so easily burnt--or it may be bought in skins. It either case, take a small portion and put it into a jelly-pot, set this in a pan with a small quantity of boiling water, and keep the water boiling until the glaze is dissolved. Brush the tongue all over with the glaze, or, rather, lay the glaze lightly and equally on the tongue with a brush, and when one coat is dry, put on a second, and a third if necessary; but, generally speaking, two coats will be found sufficient.
This is a finishing technique rather than a dish, and everything depends on the glaze itself being at the right consistency when it meets the meat.
- What "glaze" means hereNot a sugar glaze but glace de viande: brown stock reduced until it sets to a firm, dark, rubbery jelly. Commercial demi-glace or glace de viande concentrate does the same job; a jarred paste-style meat concentrate is the closest modern shelf equivalent.
- "Bought in skins"Ready-made meat glaze was sold by grocers, apparently packed in skins or bladders; the recipe gives no further detail. Nothing comparable is sold that way now, so read this as an instruction to buy rather than make.
- The bain-marieA "jelly-pot" is a small earthenware or glass jar. Standing it in simmering water is a water bath, and it is the point of the method: glaze is very easily scorched over direct heat, as the recipe itself warns.
- The hinge: temperature of the glazeIt should be just fluid and syrupy, roughly the consistency of warm honey. Too hot and it runs off in streaks; too cool and it drags and lumps. Warm the brush as well.
- The tongue must be cold and dryGlaze takes best on a cold, dry surface. Boil, skin, press and chill the tongue thoroughly, then blot it dry before the first coat.
- Coats and dryingLet each coat set in a cool place, five to ten minutes, before the next. Two coats give the lacquered mahogany finish that was the whole object; a third is only for filling patchy spots.
- SaltReduced meat glaze and brined tongue are both salty. Taste the glaze before brushing and slacken it with a little unsalted stock if it is fierce.
- ServingA pressed ox tongue of this kind will serve a dozen or so as part of a cold table, carved in thin slices.
Glazing belongs to the cold sideboard of the nineteenth-century English household, where a pressed ox tongue was standing furniture at breakfasts and cold suppers, and where a dish was expected to look handsome for hours without further attention. The glaze is French professional practice, glace de viande, borrowed into the English kitchen; reducing a large quantity of stock to a little dark jelly was one of the routine background labours of a large establishment, which is why the book concedes it is easily burnt and points the domestic reader toward the bought article instead. That aside is a small window on the period: glaze in skins was one of a growing range of manufactured kitchen shortcuts appearing in grocers' shops as commercial food processing expanded through the later 1800s, alongside bottled essences and packet gelatine.