No. 1584

Calves' Tongues a la Perigueux

Langues de Veau a la Perigueux

On the center of a round dish fasten a wooden bottom covered with cooked paste (No. 131) and having a six inch high pyramidal support in the center, also covered with paste; brush the whole with meat glaze (No. 402). Cook six or seven large claves' tongues in water, selecting those which have been in brine for twelve days. Roll out on a floured table a thin band of half puff paste (No. 146), three and a half to four inches wide; roll it on a roller to unroll on a baking sheet slightly wetted with water, then with a cardboard pattern cut from this band large pieces, straight on one side and rounded on the other, one end being pointed while the other is straight, and on the rounded side cut it into small sharp points; prick the surfaces, egg over with a brush without touching with the hands, and cook them in a slow oven until they become a light golden color; after removing let get partially cold under a very light weight. Drain the tongue, peel and keep them for ten minutes under a weight to flatten lightly; pare and cut each one in two or three pieces from top to bottom, then reconstruct them as they were before, and cover the cut sides with a layer of soubise (No. 723), reduced and thickened with a little meat glaze (No. 402), and slightly cool; keep them their correct shape, afterward glaze them over with a brush; cover the wooden bottom and surround the central support on the dish with a thick bed of good risot (No. 739), and stick on top of this support a small skewer garnished with truffles. Dress the tongues upright leaning them against the rice, lay between each one of the bands of paste to separate the tongues, letting them project slightly beyond. Cover over with a Madeira sauce (No. 492), reduced with truffle parings, and send a separate Perigueux sauce (No. 517), to the table at the same time as the tongues.

MUTTON (Mouton).

← No. 1583 Calves' Tongues a la Flamande Veal No. 1585 Breast of Mutton Plain →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is a Delmonico's presentation piece: the tongues are simple, but they are meant to stand upright against a rice-covered pedestal, fenced with pastry combs and topped with a truffle skewer. Ranhofer's cross-references carry most of the actual cooking, so the numbers below matter as much as the text.

The hinge: flatten, then rebuildThe tongues are pressed under a weight, split lengthwise into two or three slabs, spread with thick soubise, and reassembled into their original shape. If the soubise is thin or warm it will not hold the pieces together and the tongues will slump when stood upright; reduce it hard, bind it with meat glaze, and let it cool to a spreadable paste before assembling.
Brined tonguesRanhofer assumes tongues that have spent twelve days in a butcher's brine, which seasons them and gives the pink colour. He gives no cure formula here. Buy tongues already cured, or use a current recipe with weighed salt and curing salt; do not improvise a twelve-day brine from this line alone.
Cooking the tonguesSimmer, never boil, in unsalted water (they are already brined) until a skewer meets no resistance in the thickest part. Ranhofer gives no time; it will vary with size, and large calves' tongues may take a couple of hours or more. Peel while hot; the skin comes away far less cleanly once they cool.
"Slow oven" for the pastryRanhofer gives no temperature; a slow oven of this period is conventionally read as somewhere around 300-325F. The cut bands of half puff paste are thin and eggwashed, and the recipe takes them only to a light golden colour. Weighting them lightly as they cool, as the text directs, keeps them from curling.
Half puff pasteNo. 146 is demi-feuilletage, puff made with less butter or with re-rolled trimmings. Ordinary all-butter puff, docked well and baked between two sheets, gives the same flat crisp fence.
The socle and the pasteThe "wooden bottom" with a six-inch pyramid is a serving stand, not food. No. 131 is a stiff inedible cooked paste used to sheathe such supports so they can be glazed and look of a piece with the dish. A modern cook can substitute a low cake stand or simply mound the rice into a firm cone.
"Risot"No. 739 is risotto, cooked firm and dry rather than loose. It is structural here -- the tongues lean on it -- so it must be thick enough to hold a shape while hot.
Soubise, meat glaze, and the two saucesSoubise (No. 723) is an onion puree bound with rice or bechamel. Meat glaze (No. 402) is stock reduced to a syrup, used here both as an adhesive and as a varnish. Madeira sauce reduced with truffle parings goes over the dish; Perigueux -- demi-glace with Madeira and chopped truffle -- goes to table separately.
SkewerThe "small skewer garnished with truffles" is a hatelet, a decorative silver pin. Purely ornamental, and safely omitted.
YieldThe recipe calls for six or seven large tongues, split and reassembled. It gives no number of covers; as a served course in a long menu it would stretch to a dozen or so portions, fewer if treated as a main dish.

A Little History

The recipe comes from Charles Ranhofer's The Epicurean (1894), the compendium of the food he cooked over more than thirty years at Delmonico's in New York, and it shows the grammar of high service at that moment: a plinth, a symmetrical arrangement of identical pieces standing to attention, pastry used as architecture, and a skewer of truffle on top. "A la Perigueux" points to Perigord in southwestern France, the country of the black truffle, and by the nineteenth century the name had settled on a demi-glace enriched with Madeira and chopped truffle -- one of the standard sauces that signalled luxury on a menu without further explanation. Calves' tongue itself was ordinary butcher's meat; the extravagance here lies entirely in what is done to it afterward. Dishes built on socles like this one were falling out of fashion within a generation, as plated courses replaced the great dressed platters carried to the table whole.