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Boiled Tongues
Soak the prepared tongues over night in a liberal quantity of cold water to freshen them slightly, if they are salted, or blanch them if they are fresh. On the following day put them in a saucepan over the fire with fresh cold water for boiling tongues, or boiling water for fresh ones, and allow twenty minutes for each tongue from the time they begin to boil. A sliced lemon, or one teacupful of vinegar, and one teaspoonful each of whole cloves and peppercorns boiled with a large tongue, or less for smaller tongues, and so on in proportion, greatly improves the flavor. When the tongues are done take them up, peel off the skins and return them again to the hot liquor to keep them warm, or if they are to be used cold let them cool in it. When serving them cut them into long slices, beginning near the tip. All the fleshy parts and the fat near the roots of the tongues will serve to make excellent hash when cold, but are not generally served with the tongue.
A straightforward large-scale hotel method, but two things in it need translating: the peeling window and the cooking time, which as printed is nowhere near enough for a beef tongue.
- Peel while hot — this is the hingeThe thick outer skin slips off cleanly the moment the tongue leaves the pot and becomes stubborn as it cools. Hold it with a towel or a fork, split the skin at the underside with a paring knife, and strip it toward the tip; trim any gristle at the root at the same time.
- The timing is unreliable"Twenty minutes for each tongue" cannot be taken at face value; it may be a compression of the common period rule of twenty minutes to the pound, or shorthand for small tongues, but as printed it will not cook anything. A whole beef tongue of 3 to 4 lb needs 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hours at a bare simmer; calf tongue about 1 1/2 hours; lamb tongues under an hour. Cook until a skewer slides into the thickest part with no resistance, not by the clock.
- Simmer, never boilThe recipe says boil, as period recipes commonly do. A rolling boil tightens the muscle and leaves it stringy. Bring to a boil, then hold the water at a shiver with the lid ajar.
- Salted versus freshA "salted" tongue is brine-cured — what a butcher now sells as corned or pickled tongue. Those still want the overnight soak in cold water and a start in fresh cold water. A fresh tongue is started in boiling water; "blanch" in period usage generally meant covering the meat with water, bringing it to the boil briefly, then draining and discarding that water before the real cooking.
- Aromatics and quantitiesA "teacupful" was not a standardised measure; period sources reckon it at roughly half to three-quarters of a modern cup, so something under a cup of vinegar is in the right range. The recipe calls for no salt: skip it with a cured tongue, and salt the water for a fresh one.
- Cooling in the liquorLetting a tongue cool in its cooking broth keeps it moist and is the classic route to cold sliced tongue. Cool it no longer than about two hours at room temperature, then refrigerate it submerged in the strained liquid.
- Carving and yieldThe recipe wants long slices started near the tip and worked back. A 3 to 4 lb beef tongue will serve roughly 8 to 10 hot, more when sliced thin for a cold platter.
- The trimmingsThe fatty root end genuinely is best kept back. Chop it with cooked potato and onion for hash, as the recipe suggests, or fold it into a mustard-dressed salad.
Oscar Tschirky, the Waldorf's celebrated maître d'hôtel, published this book in 1896, and its tongue instructions read like what they are: notes from a kitchen that cooked organ meats in quantity every day, for hot service with piquant sauces and for the cold buffet. Tongue was cheap, keeping meat in the nineteenth century — cured in brine, sold whole by butchers, and a fixture of the cold sideboard, the picnic hamper and the sandwich counter on both sides of the Atlantic. The distinction the recipe draws between salted and fresh suggests that pickled tongue was at least as common as fresh, and the casual mention of hash from the root end is the mark of a professional kitchen.