No. 1470

Beef Tongue, Macedoine

Langue de Boeuf Macedoine

Pare and remove from a beef tongue the fat and cartilaginous part, lying near the thick end; blanch it for fifteen minutes and lard it with small lardings (No. 3, Fig. 52); seasoned with pepper, salt, and chopped parsley. Line a saucepan with slices of fat pork, place the tongue on top, and moisten with a mirepoix stock (No. 419), and white wine, then let cook for two and a half to three hours according to its size. Remove the skin, strain the stock through a sieve, then skim off all the fat and reduce it one third. Glaze the tongue nicely with this, dish it up, and garnish around with a vegetable macedoine (No. 2755) thickened with veloute (No. 415) and some good butter. A Madeira sauce (No. 492), should be served separately.

← No. 1469 Tongue, Italian, Baked Beef No. 1471 Tripe a la Mode de Caen →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a brigade with stocks and sauces already standing on the range, so the cross-references do most of the work. Stripped of them, this is a braised beef tongue, glazed in its own reduced liquid and ringed with diced vegetables.

Peel it hotThe one step that decides the dish: the tough outer skin only slips off cleanly while the tongue is still hot from the pot. Let it cool and you will be cutting the skin away with a knife, taking good meat with it.
TimingRanhofer gives two and a half to three hours "according to its size"; a heavy tongue may want longer still. Judge by feel, not the clock: a skewer should slide into the thick end with no resistance.
Blanching firstThe initial fifteen-minute blanch firms the surface so it can be larded and rids the meat of scum that would cloud the braising liquid. Start it in cold water and drain it, then rinse before larding.
LardonsLarding a tongue with a needle is optional now; tongue is fat enough on its own. If you skip it, still season the meat with the pepper, salt and parsley before it goes in the pan.
Slices of fat porkUnsmoked fatback or blanched salt pork, laid across the bottom of the pan so the meat does not sit on hot metal. Sliced bacon works but brings smoke the dish was not built for.
Mirepoix stockRanhofer's No. 419 is a stock built on a mirepoix of the usual sort, diced root vegetables and aromatics with a little cured pork. Beef or veal stock simmered with those vegetables gives much the same result; the liquid need only come partway up the tongue, since a covered pan will do the rest.
Reducing and glazingThe strained liquid is reduced by a third, which concentrates it enough to coat the meat rather than serve as a sauce; reduce further if it still runs off. Skim the fat thoroughly first or the glaze will not cling.
Macedoine and velouteA macedoine is a mixture of vegetables cut in even small dice, about a quarter inch: carrot, turnip, green beans, peas, cooked separately so each keeps its colour. Veloute here is a white stock thickened with a blond roux; a few spoonfuls, finished with butter, is enough to coat the vegetables.
YieldA single beef tongue serves six to eight as a main course. Slice it on a slight bias, starting from the thin end.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York and published The Epicurean in 1894 as a record of that restaurant's repertoire, some 3,500 numbered entries cross-referencing one another like an encyclopedia. Beef tongue occupies a long run of those numbers. Tongue was a familiar dish rather than a novelty in nineteenth-century American eating, sold pickled, smoked or fresh, and treated here in the French manner as a braise worth glazing and garnishing. Macedoine, for the mixed dice of vegetables, is traditionally traced to the polyglot empire of Alexander of Macedon, the many vegetables standing in for many nations, though this is a folk explanation; the term was well established in French kitchen usage before Ranhofer used it. Madeira sauce served separately was a common accompaniment to glazed braised meats in this period.