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Ox Tongue En Casserole
I ox tongue 2 carrots 2 onions I turnip A bunch parsley Little thyme and marjoram 3 cloves 6 allspices Stock or water Salt and pepper Wash and trim the tongue carefully, roll it round in the same way as you would ribs of beef, and keep it in shape with a piece of tape.
Wash and trim the vegetables, and cut them in pieces. Lay half of them in a casserole with the spices. Next put in the tongue, then the rest of the vegetables, and pour in enough stock or water to half cover the
An unhurried braise from the era when a lidded earthenware pot did the work of an oven and a slow cooker together. The text breaks off mid-sentence, so the finishing is left to the cook — the notes below cover what the original assumes you already know.
- What "casserole" means hereIn this book the casserole is the vessel: a deep lidded earthenware or enamelled pot that goes into the oven or sits over low heat. A heavy Dutch oven with a tight lid is the direct equivalent.
- Fresh or salted tongueA butcher's ox tongue may be sold fresh or brine-cured (pink, sold as pickled tongue). Cured tongue should be soaked in cold water for several hours and the soaking water discarded, or the finished braise will be too salty to eat. Hold back the salt until the end either way.
- Size and yieldA whole ox tongue commonly runs somewhere between about 3 and 5 lb, enough for a large household or a good deal of cold meat afterwards. Trim the root end of gristle and any small bones before rolling.
- Rolling and the tapeTape is flat cotton kitchen tape; butcher's twine does the same job. Curling the tongue round and tying it gives a compact round that slices neatly and fits a smaller pot.
- The spices"6 allspices" means six whole allspice berries, not ground. Tie them with the cloves, thyme, marjoram and parsley into a muslin bag so they can be lifted out cleanly.
- Liquid and turningThe text stops before it says so, but a close-fitting lid returns condensation to the meat, which is why half-covering suffices. Turning the tongue once partway through will keep the exposed side from drying.
- Temperature and timeThe recipe breaks off before giving any heat or timing. A slow oven, or the barest tremble on the hob, is what a casserole of this kind wants; allow several hours and test with a skewer, which should slide into the thickest part with no resistance.
- The step the recipe omitsSkin the tongue as soon as it comes out of the pot. The rough outer membrane peels away in sheets while hot and becomes almost impossible to remove once it cools. Trim the gristle at the root at the same time.
- Hot or coldServe hot in slices with the strained cooking liquor reduced to a sauce, or press the skinned tongue into a bowl or tin under a weight overnight and slice it cold for the following day's table.
Ox tongue was a staple of British and American cookery well into the twentieth century, when whole-carcass butchery meant offal reached the domestic kitchen as a matter of course rather than as a specialty order. Salted and pressed tongue was a standing cold dish on Victorian and Edwardian sideboards — cheap, sliceable, and able to sit out through a long buffet — while a fresh tongue braised in a covered pot, as here, was the hot version of the same economy. The method itself is thrifty in more than the cut: a sealed pot in a cooling oven, or over the lowest gas, will render meat this tough tender with no attention from the cook and very little heat.