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Pickled Tongues

Pickled tongues are cured in a mixture of salt, saltpetre, coarse sea salt, and moist sugar over ten days.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Pickled Tongues

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Rub the tongues well with common salt and cover them in a tub or pan for four days.

  2. Pound together 2 parts saltpetre, 1 part common salt, 1 part coarse sea salt, and 1 part moist sugar.

  3. Rub the tongues with the mixture and place them back in the pan.

  4. Turn the tongues every second day for ten days until sufficiently pickled.

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

Saltpetre
Preserves the meat's pink colour and adds a cured flavour during the long pickling.
Common salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the tongues, helping preserve the meat.
Moist sugar
Balances the salt and adds mild sweetness to the cure.

The step that matters

Turning the tongues every second day. Turning keeps every surface in contact with the salt mixture so the cure penetrates evenly. Uneven contact can leave patches under-cured or spoiled.

“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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