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Boiled Beef Tongue

Boiled beef tongues are cooked in salted water until tender, then peeled and served.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Boiled Beef Tongue

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean the tongues and place them in a kettle.

  2. Add enough water to cover the tongues and 1 cup of coarse sea salt.

Boil

  1. Add more water as it evaporates to keep the tongues covered until they are tender and can be pierced easily with a fork.

  2. Remove the tongues from the kettle.

Finish

  1. If serving immediately, peel off the skin.

  2. If saving for later, do not peel until needed.

  3. If using salt tongues, soak them overnight.

  4. If using salt tongues, omit the salt when boiling.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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
The main protein, which becomes tender through long simmering in water.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the cooking liquid and seasons the meat during the boil.

The step that matters

Keep the tongues fully covered while boiling. Water that evaporates and exposes the meat cooks it unevenly and can leave dry, tough patches. Topping up the water keeps the tongues submerged so they cook gently and evenly until a fork pierces them easily.

“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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