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To Pickle Tongues for Boiling

A preserved tongue pickled with salt, sugar, saltpetre, and bran, then boiled until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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To Pickle Tongues for Boiling

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the tongues

  1. Cut off the root of the tongues, leaving some kernel and fat.

  2. Sprinkle with salt and let drain overnight.

  3. Mix 1 tablespoon of common salt, 1 tablespoon of coarse sugar, and ½ tablespoon of saltpetre for each tongue.

  4. Rub the mixture into the tongues daily for a week, adding another heaped tablespoon of salt after a week.

  5. If rubbed daily, the tongues will be ready in two weeks; if only turned in the pickle, they will keep for four to five weeks.

Dry and label

  1. Write the date on parchment and tie it to the tongues when drying.

  2. Smoke or dry them plain as preferred.

Cook

  1. To prepare, boil the tongue until extremely tender, about five hours; if done sooner, keep hot.

  2. If the tongue is hard, soak for three to four hours before cooking.

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

Tongues
The meat being cured, dried or smoked, and then cooked until tender.
Common salt
Draws out moisture and preserves the meat during the cure, while adding savoury flavour.
Coarse sugar
Balances the sharpness of the salt and adds mild sweetness to the cure.
Saltpetre
Helps the cured meat keep its colour and slows spoilage during the long cure.

The step that matters

Boil the tongue until extremely tender. Tongue is rich in connective tissue that only breaks down after prolonged gentle cooking. Stopping early leaves it tough, so keep it simmering and hot until it is fully tender.

“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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