Curing and Canning Lambs’ Tongues
Ingredients
Directions
Cure
Wash the lambs' tongues thoroughly to remove slime and extraneous matter.
Pack the tongues in tierces and cover with brine.
Dissolve saltpetre in a small quantity of hot water and add to each tierce.
Seal the tierces and place them in a chill room for 18 days to cure.
Blanch and can
Blanch the tongues for 30 minutes before canning.
Process the cans in a retort for 1 hour 15 minutes at 3 lbs. pressure with the center vent open.
Allow the pressure to exhaust slowly, then quickly seal the cans.
Boil and cool
Return the sealed cans to the retort and boil for 1 hour 45 minutes at 4 lbs. pressure with the exhaust open.
After boiling, remove the cans and cool them in a shower room.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Lambs' tongues
- Forms the meat that is cured, cooked and preserved in the cans.
- Saltpetre
- Helps the meat keep its pink color and slows spoilage during curing.
- Brine
- Carries salt into the tongues during the long curing period.
The step that matters
Sealing and re-processing the cans. Cans must be sealed tightly before the final pressure boil. Low-acid meat needs temperatures above boiling to destroy spoilage microbes, and any leak lets bacteria survive or re-enter.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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