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To Pickle Tongues for Boiling

This recipe describes pickling beef tongues with salt, sugar, saltpetre, and bran, then boiling 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

Prepare the tongues

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

  2. Sprinkle with salt and let drain overnight.

Cure

  1. Mix ½ cup common salt, ½ cup coarse sugar, and ¼ cup saltpetre for each tongue.

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

  3. 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 serve

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

  2. Smoke or dry the tongues as preferred.

  3. To prepare, boil the tongue until extremely tender, about five hours, keeping it hot if done sooner.

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 meat; curing firms and seasons it while it keeps its tender texture when boiled.
Common salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat, helping preserve it during curing.
Coarse sugar
Balances the salt with mild sweetness and softens the harsh edge of the cure.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the meat and gives it the characteristic pink curing colour.

The step that matters

Rubbing the cure in daily for a week. Salt and saltpetre must reach the whole tongue to cure it evenly; skipping days leaves uncured areas where spoilage can start and the colour and firmness become uneven.

“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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