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COLUMN: Ilse Cooks the Books (Tongue in Mustard Sauce)

───   13:16 Wed, 07 Feb 2018

COLUMN: Ilse Cooks the Books (Tongue in Mustard Sauce) | News Article

February is the month of love and so I decided to cook the favourite dishes of four of my loved ones. It did not start well.


The first person I wanted to cook for, is my husband.  My darling dearest taught me the real meaning of that old phrase: I’ve never thought about divorce, but I’ve often thought about murder. We met thirteen years ago – it will be fourteen in April – and we celebrated our eleventh wedding anniversary in December last year. 

We have very different personalities, but we have lots of shared interests and I believe that is why our relationship works. Sport, scuba-diving, reading, the outdoors, travelling, the ocean, the bushveld, animals, our pets and our friends (more important than you realise!), wine, hiking, good television… But probably our biggest shared love is food. We both love food. Not just food as nourishment, but the drama, the art, the unbelievable creativity of fine dining, and the heartiness, comfort and pleasure of bistro and home-cooking.

I thought long and hard about his favourite dishes – there are loads.  I finally settled on one which I know has a special place in his heart and in his tummy:  Beef tongue in mustard sauce.  This is the dish his mother makes when she comes to visit us, or when we go to visit her. It’s what she made at Christmas and Easter, as a special treat and for birthdays in the family.

Only problem was, I didn’t have her mustard sauce recipe.  Instead of doing the sensible thing, which is phoning my mother-in-law and asking for the recipe, I scoured my recipe books and finally decided on trying a version from Huisgenoot’s Top 500 Wenresepte. 

Afterwards, I realised, don’t mess with a family classic!


HUISGENOOT TOP 500 WENRESEPTE – TONGUE IN MUSTARD SAUCE

Don’t get me wrong – there’s nothing wrong with the recipe.  True, I made it twice, because the first time I wasn’t sure about the taste. The first time I used red wine from a bottle that had been sitting in the fridge for quite a while, but there was a bitter taste to the sauce.  So, I made it a second time using a “fresh” bottle and it tasted much better. 

When I proudly put the plate in front of my husband, declaring that I made his favourite dish for Valentine’s Day, he looked at it suspiciously. I think the pinkness of the sauce didn’t do much to make the dish look particularly appetising. 

He finished the whole plate and even had a second helping. But when I asked him how it was, he declared his mom’s recipe was better. When I tell friends this story, they are quite indignant that he told me he didn’t like it. Why, I ask. We are both serious about food. I don’t eat red meat, so I didn’t get the whole experience of the dish like he had. Now, I know not to make it again. Or rather, to stick to his mom’s recipe.

I’ll give you both and let you decide for yourself. I served it with roasted veggie couscous and baked broccoli cheese.

HUISGENOOT’S RECIPE

Serves 6

Preparing the tongue

1,5 kg beef tongue

1 onion, cut into rings

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 bay leaf

 

Place the tongue in a medium-sized pot and cover with cold water. Add the onion, bay leaf salt and pepper, cover and heat to boiling point. Reduce the heat and simmer for one to one and a half hour, or until the tongue is cooked.  When it’s cool enough to handle, remove the skin and any glands. Cut the tongue into thin slices.

(Or just do what I did and buy a ready-cooked tongue from Woolies.)

 

Mustard sauce

20 ml butter

15 ml cake flour

20-25 ml mustard powder

50 ml yellow sugar

1 ml salt

100 ml boiling water

50 ml brown vinegar

100 ml mayonnaise

100 ml red wine

4 eggs, beaten

100-150 ml sour cream

Fresh bread crumbs (optional)

Heat the oven to 180?C.  Butter a baking dish or spray with cooking spray. 

 

Melt the butter in a small saucepan. Mix the cake flour, mustard powder, sugar and salt. Add to the butter and stir. Add the water and vinegar. Cook until the sauce thickens while stirring continuously.  Remove from the stove top and add the rest of the ingredients.

Place the slices of tongue into a baking dish and pour the sauce over. Sprinkle with the breadcrumbs if desired. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, or until everything is warmed through.


MOTHER-IN-LAW’S RECIPE

Preparing the tongue

1 beef tongue

3 cloves

12.5 ml brown sugar

3 whole peppercorns

 

Cook the tongue with the cloves, sugar and peppercorns for ±2 hours. Let it cook, remove the skin and slice into thin slices. 

Mustard sauce

125 ml sugar

250 ml boiling water

250 ml mayonnaise

2 ml salt

12,5 ml mustard powder

12,5 ml white vinegar

25 ml sunflower oil

25 ml cake flour

50 ml lemon juice

Mix all the ingredients for the sauce. Slice the tongue into thin slices and layer in a prepared baking dish (buttered or sprayed with cooking spray). Pour over the sauce and bake in a medium oven for 30 minutes.

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