Home › The Waldorf Kitchen › Beef Tongue Sandwich
Beef Tongue Sandwich
Chop one-half pound of cold boiled tongue, put it into a mortar with the yolks of two hard boiled eggs, one tablespoonful of made mustard, some salt, and a small quantity of cayenne pepper, and pound it all to a paste. Dilute the paste with two or three tablespoonfuls of cream. Cut some thin slices of bread, butter them, then spread them with the mixture, and press them together in pairs. Cut the sandwiches in halves, put them on an ornamental dish-paper or a folded napkin placed on a dish, and serve.
A potted-tongue spread rather than a sliced sandwich, and the texture is the whole point. Pound it further than seems necessary.
- Mortar or processorA food processor does this in under a minute, but pulse rather than run it continuously or the cream breaks and the paste turns greasy. If working by hand, chop the tongue very fine first; cold tongue is fibrous and resists pounding.
- "Made mustard"Prepared mustard, as opposed to dry mustard powder; in period usage this generally meant mustard flour mixed to a paste with water or vinegar. Use a sharp prepared mustard rather than American yellow, which is milder and sweeter than intended.
- Cold boiled tongueBeef tongue is sold fresh or cured (pickled). Either works here, but cured tongue is already salty, so hold back the added salt until you have tasted the paste. Deli-counter sliced tongue is a workable shortcut for half a pound.
- Cream quantityTwo or three tablespoons is a starting point, not a rule. Add it a spoonful at a time until the paste spreads without tearing thin bread; the mix stiffens noticeably after an hour in the refrigerator.
- Egg yolksOnly the yolks go in, for richness and binding. The whites are not used here; chop them into a salad rather than adding them to the paste, where they would make it grainy.
- BreadThin slices from a close-crumbed white loaf, crusts trimmed, is the period standard for a tea sandwich. Butter both slices to the edges, which keeps the moist filling from soaking through.
- Yield and holdingHalf a pound of tongue makes enough filling for about six sandwiches, or twelve halves. Assemble no more than an hour or two ahead and keep them covered with a damp cloth in the refrigerator.
Tongue was a staple of the late Victorian and Edwardian cold table, cheap enough for a boarding house and respectable enough for a hotel buffet. Pounding cooked meat with butter or cream and seasoning into a paste is the old technique of potting, developed as a way of preserving and stretching leftovers under a seal of fat; by this period the preserving purpose had largely fallen away and what remained was a smooth, strongly seasoned spread for sandwiches. The instruction to serve on an ornamental dish-paper or folded napkin is a reminder that this book is as much about presentation for guests as about cookery.