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Jellied Tongue Salad
One cupful of chopped cold tongue, two cupfuls of dark aspic jelly, three cupfuls of celery diced, one-half pint mayonnaise dressing. Mix the tongue with the aspic jelly, pour into small timball moulds, and set away to harden. Mix the celery with a part of the mayonnaise and put it in the center of a salad dish, around which arrange the moulds of tongue. Garnish with the celery leaves. Serve the remainder of the dressing in a separate dish.
A cold composed salad that depends entirely on the aspic setting firmly enough to unmould. Everything else is assembly.
- Dark aspic jellyIn books of this period "dark aspic" generally means a clarified brown stock — veal or beef, sometimes flavoured with a little sherry or Madeira — set with gelatine, or stiff enough from the bones to set by itself. A modern approximation is 2 cups of strong, well-skimmed beef or veal stock with about 2 teaspoons (close to one envelope) of powdered gelatine per cup, which should give a jelly firm enough to stand out of a mould.
- The hinge: set it firmThe tongue is heavy and will sink and split a soft jelly. Chill the moulds at least 4 hours, ideally overnight, and test a spoonful of the aspic on a cold saucer before you commit the whole batch.
- Timbale mouldsSmall straight-sided cups of about 1/3 to 1/2 cup capacity. Ramekins, dariole moulds, or even a muffin tin will do; rinse them with cold water or brush lightly with oil so the jellies release. A brief dip in warm water and a firm shake turns them out.
- Half a pint of mayonnaiseOne cup. The dressing intended here would have been a thick hand-made mayonnaise, most likely olive-oil based, rather than a jarred product; a homemade one, or a good jarred mayonnaise loosened with a spoonful of lemon juice, sits better against the salty tongue.
- The tongueCold cooked tongue, most likely beef, skinned and diced small. A whole tongue may need ordering from a butcher and takes roughly 2 to 3 hours or more of simmering plus cooling; cured or pickled tongue from a deli counter, or thick-cut sliced tongue, works and needs only dicing. Trim the gristly root end.
- ProportionsThree cups of celery to one of tongue is celery-forward by modern taste. Dice it fine, dress it just before serving so it stays crisp, and hold back some mayonnaise for the sauce dish as directed.
- YieldAbout six small moulds — enough for six as a first course or four as a light lunch with bread.
Jellied meats in individual moulds were a mark of ambitious cold cookery in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when reliable ice and commercial powdered gelatine put aspic within reach of a household cook rather than only a professional kitchen. Aspic itself is older and was originally a by-product of good stock-making: boil bones and connective tissue long enough and the liquid sets on its own, a property cooks exploited long before gelatine was sold in envelopes. Tongue was a thrifty and much-admired cut in this period, sold cured by grocers and served cold and sliced on buffets, so a salad book would naturally find a use for the leftovers. The presentation here — celery in the centre, moulds ringed around it, sauce passed separately — follows the service style of the era, in which a salad was expected to be built and looked at as much as eaten.