No. 1657

Sheep's Tongues, Ecarlate with Spinach

Langues de Mouton Ecarlate aux Epinards

Have several sheep's tongues; prick them with a trussing needle, and rub over with a little powdered saltpetre; keep them in a cool place until the following day; then prepare a brine of salt water, stir it to dissolve the salt, having enough of it to enable a potato to float on the surface. Lay the tongues in an earthen crock, pour the salted water over, and a few days after when sufficiently red, soak them for twelve hours, and then blanch in plenty of water. Braise the tongues in a mirepoix stock (No. 419) moistened with white wine, and let boil; when cooked set them under a weight, pare and keep warm; dress and garnish with cooked spinach (No. 2820). Serve a half-glaze sauce (No. 413) apart.

← No. 1656 Mutton Tendons with Mushrooms Mutton No. 1658 Sheep's Tongues, Neapolitan Style →

For the Modern Kitchen Do not make this as written.

This is a nitrate cure followed by a braise, and the cure is the problem: every quantity, temperature and time in it is left to the cook's judgement. The points below explain the terms and then why the method cannot be followed today.

EcarlateFrench for "scarlet" — the name refers to the colour the saltpetre cure gives the meat, not to any ingredient. The same term attaches to corned beef and cured ox tongue throughout nineteenth-century French cookery.
Unmeasured saltpetre"A little powdered saltpetre" rubbed over pricked tongues is the whole nitrate dosage. Potassium nitrate is regulated in food precisely because the safe window is narrow and measured in parts per million against the weight of meat; a rub applied by eye can land anywhere.
The floating-potato brineA brine strong enough to float a potato is a strong brine, though well short of saturation, and the test varies with the potato. It tells you nothing about the nitrate concentration, which is what actually inhibits the organisms of concern. Salt strength alone is not a cure specification.
Temperature and time left open"Keep them in a cool place," "a few days after when sufficiently red." A nineteenth-century larder could sit anywhere across a wide and unrecorded range. Curing meat is only safe when the holding temperature and the number of days are both fixed and verified; here neither is.
Why the risk is specificWhole tongues are dense, and a cure has to reach the interior by diffusion, which is presumably what the pricking with a trussing needle is for. Under-penetration in a low-oxygen, salted, warm environment is the classic setting for Clostridium botulinum. That is what correctly dosed curing salt exists to prevent.
Mirepoix stock, half-glazeRanhofer's cross-references: No. 419 is a stock built on the diced carrot, onion, celery and ham base; No. 413 is demi-glace, a reduced brown sauce. Both are ordinary and safe — it is only the cure that fails.
Pressing under a weightBraised tongue is cooled or held under a board and weight so it slices cleanly and holds a compact shape. This is standard charcuterie practice and the one technique here worth keeping in mind.
If you want the dishUse a current, tested curing recipe with weighed curing salt and a stated refrigeration temperature and duration, or buy tongue already cured. The braise, the spinach and the demi-glace can then follow as written.

A Little History

Ecarlate preparations belong to a long European tradition of nitrate-cured tongue, where saltpetre was valued as much for the scarlet colour it fixed in the meat as for its preservative effect. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as a complete professional reference, and its cross-referenced numbering assumes a brigade kitchen with a stocked garde-manger, cured meats standing in crocks and a mirepoix stock always going. Sheep's tongues were cheap, plentiful in a period when whole carcasses came into the kitchen, and appear here in a run of mutton offal dishes — tendons, tongues Neapolitan — that reflects an economy of butchery largely gone from restaurant cooking. The potato-float test for brine strength is older than the book and is often said to have survived as general kitchen shorthand for some time afterwards.