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Beef Tongue in Aspic Jelly
Trim off the roots of a skinned cold boiled tongue, either fresh or salted. Pack a half-gallon mould in ice, pour in a little warmed aspic jelly to cover the bottom to about one inch in depth, let it set, garnish with beet-root cut in various shapes, pour over a little more aspic to set them, place the tongue upside down on top, pour over one teacupful more of the jelly to fix the tongue in its place, then fill up the mould with jelly, and let it remain till set and quite firm. Turn it out onto a dish, garnish with parsley and pickles, and serve. Pickled beet-root should be used if possible.
A cold buffet centrepiece from the Waldorf's larder, written for a cook who already had boiled tongue and a stockpot of aspic on hand. The technique is straightforward layering; the pitfalls are all about temperature and the setting strength of the jelly.
- The hinge: jelly temperature"Warmed" aspic means barely liquid and syrupy, not hot. Aspic melts somewhere in the region of body temperature, so a warm pour risks softening the set layer beneath it and floating the beetroot garnish out of position. Cool each addition over ice water until it thickens slightly, then pour.
- Vessel and yieldA half-gallon mould is 2 quarts. Around a beef tongue, which usually runs 3 to 4 lb, expect to need something in the region of 6 cups of jelly; the recipe gives no weight or serving count, but a mould this size will serve a table of ten or so as a cold course. A loaf pan or terrine works if you have no dome mould.
- A teacupfulA teacupful in recipes of this period is usually taken as somewhere between 4 and 6 fl oz. It is a rough measure and the exact amount does not matter here, since it only needs to anchor the tongue.
- Cooking the tongue firstThe recipe assumes it done: simmer a fresh or cured tongue 3 to 3 1/2 hours until a skewer slides in easily, then peel the thick outer skin while it is still hot, as it will not come away once cold. Trimming "the roots" means cutting back the fatty gristle at the thick base.
- Will your aspic setNineteenth-century aspic came from long-boiled veal knuckles and calves' feet and set on its own. Stock made today usually will not. Test a spoonful on a chilled plate, and reinforce with about one envelope of powdered gelatin per 2 cups of stock if it stays loose.
- Salted tongue and seasoningA cured or corned tongue is considerably saltier than a fresh one, so season the aspic lightly and taste it cold, since gelatin dulls salt and acid noticeably as it chills.
- Packing in iceIce packed around the mould was how a kitchen of this date held a jelly firm. A refrigerator at 40F does the same work, though each layer sets more slowly; allow 20 to 30 minutes per layer and at least 6 hours, or overnight, for the finished mould.
- UnmouldingDip the mould in warm water for 10 to 15 seconds, wipe it dry, and invert onto a chilled platter. Placing the tongue "upside down" in the mould puts its best rounded face uppermost once turned out.
- Pickled beetrootThe preference is sound. The acidity cuts the richness of the set stock, and pickled beet is generally reckoned to bleed less into the surrounding jelly than plain boiled beet, though no beet is wholly reliable on that count.
Aspic work of this kind was the measure of a hotel garde-manger around 1900, and the Waldorf, where Oscar Tschirky was maître d'hôtel, was known for cold work of the sort: cold moulded tongue, ham, chicken and game glazed in clarified meat jelly for buffets, suppers after the theatre, and the long cold tables of a ball. The jelly was a by-product of good housekeeping rather than a luxury, since a stockpot working through veal bones and calves' feet gave up gelatin whether you wanted it or not, and setting food in it both preserved and displayed. Tongue in particular was regarded as a fine cold cut rather than an offcut, sold cured by butchers and served sliced thin at luncheon. The style is generally traced to the French professional kitchen codified by Carême and carried into the hotel era by Escoffier, where cold presentation with its beetroot cut "in various shapes" was judged as a craft in itself. Refrigeration is the quiet subject of the recipe: the mould is packed in ice to hold it firm.