Braised Tongue
3 lbs. fresh tongue 1/4 cup butter Carrot, Turnip, Onion} 1/4 cup diced 1 tablespoon cornstarch Bit of cinnamon 1 clove Bouquet of sweet herbs 1/2 lemon 1 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon pepper Wash tongue, cover with boiling water and cook slowly two hours. Remove from water, blanch in cold water, and remove skin and roots. Cook vegetables in butter five minutes, remove them to a deep braising pan. Brown tongue in fat and place on vegetables in pan. Add clove, cinnamon and sweet herbs, salt and pepper; cover the tongue one-half way with stock in which it was cooked. Cover the braising pan and bake two hours. At the last half hour the juice of lemon is added. When tender remove to hot platter.
For gravy add cornstarch dissolved in cold water to stock in braising pan, which should be reduced to 1 pint. Boil five minutes and pour around the tongue on hot platter. 1 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce or tomato catsup may be used in gravy.
A straightforward two-stage braise: the tongue is simmered until the skin will peel, then browned and oven-braised in its own stock. The recipe assumes you know what a braising pan and a bouquet of sweet herbs are, and gives no oven temperature.
- The hinge: peel while hotThe hinge: peel while warm -- The skin comes away most easily soon after the initial boil. The instruction to blanch in cold water appears to be meant to make the tongue handleable rather than cold — dunk briefly, then pull the skin off with your fingers and a paring knife while the meat is still warm. Once it has cooled through the skin is much harder to remove.
- Oven temperatureNone is given; cookbooks of this period generally left oven heat to the cook's judgement. Braise at around 325F, covered; the liquid should barely tremble, not boil.
- Buying the tongue"Fresh" means uncured — not the pink, brined tongue sold in delicatessens, which is a different product and already seasoned. A 3 lb beef tongue is average; ask a butcher, as it is rarely on open display.
- Bouquet of sweet herbsPeriod shorthand for a tied bundle of herbs, usually parsley, thyme and bay, sometimes with marjoram or savory. Tie it with string or the leaves will scatter through the gravy.
- Total timeTwo hours simmering plus two hours braising is not exaggerated for tongue, which is a working muscle wrapped in connective tissue. Test with a skewer at the thick end; it should meet no resistance. Under-cooked tongue is unpleasantly springy.
- Reducing to a pintThe gravy quantity is set by reduction, not by the original volume of stock, so start checking well before the braise ends. One tablespoon cornstarch slaked in cold water will lightly thicken a pint; boiling five minutes cooks out the raw starch taste.
- Lemon at the endAdding the juice in the last half hour keeps its brightness, which would cook away over a long braise. Keep it late.
- Yield and servingThree pounds of tongue, once skinned and trimmed, serves roughly four to six. Slice thinly on the diagonal, starting at the tip, and spoon the gravy around rather than over. Cold leftovers slice neatly the next day.
Tongue was standard household meat rather than a curiosity in 1900s America, cheap enough to appear in mainstream cookbooks and substantial enough to serve a family hot on Sunday and cold in sandwiches all week. The technique here is textbook French braising as it was taught in the American cooking-school movement — sweat the aromatic vegetables in butter to make a bed, brown the meat, moisten halfway, cover and hold at a low steady heat — and the clove, cinnamon and lemon combination points back further, to the sweet-spiced meat cookery that English and colonial kitchens carried into the nineteenth century. The initial two-hour simmer produces a good stock along the way. The optional Worcestershire sauce or tomato catsup is the period's own convenience touch, both being bottled staples by then.