To Pickle Tongues
Ingredients
Directions
Rub the beef tongue with white salt, saltpetre, and coarse salt.
Turn the tongue in the pickle every day for 2 weeks.
This pickle can be reused for several tongues; just add a little more white salt as needed.
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 tongue
- Is the meat being cured, so its texture and color change during the salting.
- Saltpetre
- Helps the cured meat keep its pink color and adds a cured flavor.
- White salt
- Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it during the cure.
- Coarse salt
- Adds bulk salt that penetrates the tongue and preserves it during curing.
The step that matters
Turning the tongue in the pickle every day. Salt penetrates unevenly if the tongue sits still, so parts stay less cured and may spoil. Daily turning keeps the brine in contact with all surfaces over the two weeks.
“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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