Ox Tongue

Step number 1.

One shot of sloe gin, from sloes collected from the South Downs.

Step number 2.

Open Nose to Tail Eating page 94.

Step number 3.

Mild panic.

I bought the tongue from the butchers yesterday. It was already salted in a brine for about three weeks. A little longer than I would have done, so I'm a tad concerned about the saltiness. Sometimes they say it should be rinsed for 24 hours, but not in the recipe I'm follwing, I just won't add any more. My biggest concern at the moment is the stuff at the bottom of the tongue. Do I cook that too? Or cut it off? It looks, to be frank, disgusting. Anyway, I'll look on line.

I cut some of the foul looking bits off, but it actually looks pretty meaty on second inspection.

I have mostly followed the recipe in Nose to Tail however, I followed one piece of advice to bring it to the boil briefly first, get rid of the liquid and scum that gathers on the top of the water. In fact, it is actually beginning to look more meat like. Thank god.

I peeled a couple of carrots, an onion and crushed ten cloves of garlic and threw in some peppercorns, rosemary from the garden a couple of doors down (old people's home – they bang on the window but they'll never catch me), and some bay leaves from our garden, two sticks of celery and all the veg from this morning's trotter foray. And now leave it for 3.5 hours. Time for a country walk I think...

(My Mac smells of garlic)