Preparing Jellied Tongues
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the tongues
Cook the beef tongues thoroughly and pack them in a container while hot.
Press the cooked tongues to remove excess moisture before adding the jelly.
Cure and cook the skins
Cure the hog skins in 75% plain pickle for 4 to 5 days, then wash them thoroughly.
Cook the washed skins in a double jacket kettle covered with water until done.
Remove the skins and let the liquid settle for one hour, then strain through a cloth or fine sieve.
Make the jelly and finish
Make jelly from calf feet and hog skins by cooking until done and boiling down until all water is evaporated.
Pour the hot jelly over the tongues.
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
- Beef tongues
- Form the main body of the dish, set in a firm jelly around them.
- Calf feet
- Provide gelatin that lets the cooking liquid set into a jelly.
- Hog skins
- Add additional gelatin to the jelly, helping it firm up when cooled.
- 75% plain pickle
- Cures the hog skins before they are cooked into the jelly.
The step that matters
Boiling the jelly down until all water is evaporated. Gelatin must be concentrated to set firmly. If the liquid is too thin, the jelly will not hold when cooled and the tongues will not be held in a firm mass.
“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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