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Cod Tongues, Poulette
Blanch 18 tongues; put into saucepan with a pint of Hollandaise sauce and 1/2 gill of the stock in which they were blanched. Add a teaspoonful chopped parsley, and heat a few minutes without allowing it to boil. Turn into dish, sprinkle over a little finely chopped parsley, and serve.
A short finishing recipe that assumes you already have a pan of sauce and a bowl of blanched cod tongues on hand. The whole dish comes together in under five minutes, and the only thing that can go wrong is heat.
- Never let it boilThe sauce is bound with egg yolk and will break into grainy curds the moment it simmers. Hold the pan over low heat, or over a pan of hot water, and take it off when steam first rises.
- Cod tonguesNot tongues at all but the small triangular muscle from under the jaw of the cod, still sold fresh and frozen in Newfoundland and Nordic fish markets. Ask a fishmonger to order them; nothing else has quite the same gelatinous texture.
- BlanchingRinse well, then slip them into barely simmering salted water for three to four minutes, just until firm and opaque. Longer and they turn tough and lose the softness that is the whole point of the dish. Keep the water; it is the stock called for below.
- A gillA gill is a quarter pint, so half a gill is 2 fl oz (about four tablespoons) by US measure, or 2 1/2 fl oz (about five tablespoons) by British. It is there to loosen the sauce, so judge by consistency rather than measuring exactly.
- A pint of sauceTwo cups by US measure, twenty fluid ounces by British. That is a generous amount for eighteen tongues; two-thirds of it will coat them adequately if you would rather not make so much.
- Poulette versus hollandaiseA modern poulette is velout\finfinished with egg yolk, cream and lemon. Older English-language books often gave "hollandaise" as a butter-and-egg sauce built on a flour base, which may well be what is meant here, and which suits this dish.
- YieldEighteen tongues serves three or four as a first course, two as a main with boiled potatoes. Scale the sauce and stock together.