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Braised Ox Tongue
Ingredients.
A fresh Tongue.
Three quarts of Second Stock.
A good Bouquet Garni.
One Onion, whole Peppercorns, three Cloves, and Salt.
Steep a fresh tongue in cold water for an hour, then put it into a stewpan with three quarts of second stock, an onion, a bunch of herbs, peppercorns, cloves and salt; let it boil steadily for three hours. Take it up, strip off the white skin very carefully, trim off the root and rough parts of fat, etc., glaze it well and put it in the oven for twenty minutes. Serve with piquante or Italian sauce; and spinach round it.
A straightforward long simmer, but two details decide the result: use a fresh tongue rather than a cured one, and peel the skin while the meat is still too hot to hold comfortably.
- Fresh, not pickled"A fresh Tongue" means an uncured beef tongue, typically 3-4 lb. Butchers and Latin American or halal markets stock them; a brined or corned tongue will make the finished dish too salty, especially as the recipe salts the pot as well.
- Second stockIn a Victorian professional kitchen this was the weaker liquid from a second boiling of bones already used for first stock. Ordinary unsalted beef or veal stock diluted by about half with water is the equivalent, and plain water with the aromatics will do — the tongue itself flavours the pot heavily.
- Salt it properlyNo quantity is given, as with the peppercorns and cloves; the amount was left to the cook. For three quarts of liquid, start with about a tablespoon of salt; the tongue absorbs seasoning slowly over three hours and an underseasoned one tastes flat no matter how good the sauce.
- Time to tenderness, not the clockThree hours suits a small tongue at a bare simmer. Test with a skewer at the thickest part — it should slide in with no resistance. A large one can want four hours. "Boil steadily" should be read as a gentle simmer; a hard boil makes the meat stringy.
- Peel while hotThis is the hinge. The rough white skin lifts away in one sheet if you start at the tip within a minute or two of taking the tongue from the pot. Let it cool and the skin bonds to the meat and has to be scraped off in fragments.
- Glazing"Glaze it well" means brushing with glace de viande — cooking liquid strained, skimmed and reduced to a syrup. Reduce two cups of the strained broth to a few tablespoons and paint it on in layers.
- The oven stageTwenty minutes in the oven; the recipe gives no temperature. A fairly hot oven sets and darkens the glaze. Baste with more glaze once or twice; it is finishing, not further cooking.
- Bouquet garniParsley stalks, thyme and a bay leaf tied with string, or wrapped in a leek leaf. Tie it so it can be lifted out whole before the broth is reduced.
- Yield and carvingA 3-4 lb tongue serves six to eight. Carve across the grain in thin slices, starting from the middle and working toward the tip, which is the leanest part.
Braised tongue was a staple of the grand nineteenth-century table because it satisfied two demands at once: it came from an animal already bought whole, and glazed and set on a dish ringed with spinach it looked like a centrepiece. A plain boiled cut was a canvas, and the cook's skill was judged by the sauce piquante (a reduction of vinegar, shallots and stock finished with chopped gherkins) or the Italian sauce (a duxelles of mushrooms and ham in demi-glace) that came with it. Pressed cold tongue, the same preparation packed into a round mould under a weight, was the standard cold-buffet and sandwich meat of British households well into the twentieth century, which is why some old kitchens owned a dedicated tongue press. The dish faded from home cooking not for want of flavour but because whole organ meats stopped being sold routinely across the butcher's counter.