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Tongues, Sheep's
Wash half a dozen sheep's tongues, put them into a saucepan with as much boiling stock as will cover them, and let them simmer gently until tender. Take off the skin, and trim the tongues in halves. Dish them in a circle, the roots inwards, and pour into the centre mashed turnips, green peas, or a little onion sauce. Time to simmer one hour or more. Probable cost, about 4d. each. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A plain boiled-tongue dish that depends on two things: enough gentle simmering, and peeling the tongues while they are still hot. Everything else is presentation.
- Peel hot, not coldThe skin slips off cleanly the moment the tongues come out of the liquor; once cooled it grips and tears the meat. Lift them one at a time, hold with a cloth, and slit the skin along the underside.
- Timing"One hour or more" is optimistic for most tongues sold today. Allow 1.5 to 2.5 hours at a bare simmer, and test by pushing a skewer through the thickest part at the root — it should meet no resistance.
- SourcingSheep's (lamb's) tongues are a butcher or halal-market item rather than a supermarket one, and are often sold frozen or already brined. If brined, soak several hours in cold water and do not salt the cooking liquid.
- Stock"Boiling stock" here means ordinary household broth; a light chicken or veal stock works, or water with an onion, carrot, bay and a few peppercorns. Keep the heat low — a rolling boil toughens the muscle and clouds the liquor.
- Trimming in halvesSplit each peeled tongue lengthwise, and cut away the gristly root end and any small bones or glandular tissue at the base. Six tongues give twelve halves, enough to ring a dinner plate.
- "Roots inwards"The halves are laid in a wheel with the thick cut ends toward the middle so the tapering tips point out, leaving a well in the centre for the vegetables or sauce.
- Cost and yield4d. each was cheap offal money by Victorian standards. As written the dish is said to be sufficient for five or six persons with the mashed turnip or peas; two halves per person is the portion.
- Keep the cooking liquorThe strained liquid is well flavoured and lightly gelatinous. Reduce a little of it into the onion sauce, or save it as a base for soup.
Sheep's tongues sat at the cheap end of the Victorian offal trade, well below the salted ox tongue that appeared pressed and glazed on a buffet table. Cassell's presents them the way a competent kitchen handled any small boiled meat: simmered in whatever stock was already on the stove, skinned, and arranged in a ring, a form of service that let a modest quantity of meat frame a mound of vegetables and read as a composed dish. The suggested accompaniments are telling. Mashed turnip, green peas and onion sauce are all standard English partners for mutton, and they place this squarely as a household dinner rather than a delicacy. Costing the ingredient by the piece, as the book does throughout, was aimed at readers running a kitchen to a weekly figure.