head of veal - tête de veau

Let the veal tongue soak in lightly salted water for 24 hours. Rinse and then simmer for 2 to 3 hours, depending on the weight, in a soup kettle with the shank, water, garlic, carrot, celery, leek, onion, bay leaf, thyme and crushed peppercorns. Also add the pieces of veal blanquette. Regularly check the cooking. It is possible that the tongue needs a longer cooking time. In that case, remove the blanquette from the broth and keep it covered for further use. Blanch the sliced mushrooms in the stock at the end of the cooking time. Remove them after a few minutes and save separately. Strain the stock. Remove the skin from the tongue and cut the meat into cubes. Make the sauce: shred scallops and fry them in plenty of butter. Mix with a few tablespoons of flour and stir it for a while. Now add the hot stock with small amounts at the same time and keep stirring until a well-bound sauce.

Mix the sauce with the desired amount of tomato paste and season with pepper, salt and nutmeg. Let boil for a while and now do theveal blanquette, cubes of sole and mushrooms in the sauce. You can also stir a few drops of Madeira or dry sherry through the sauce. Serve hot at the table in a dish finished with hard boiled eggs, sliced gherkins and some tufts of chervil. There is also a cold preparation of tête de veaux (see photo), which can be found sliced and packaged in probably every supermarket in the country, or at your local butcher's. You can easily make that yourself. Depending on how much you want to make, you can put ten gelatine sheets in cold water. Dissolve it in the warm preparation of the tête de veaux, stir well and fill containers with it. You put them in the refrigerator to stiffen.