This week's local meal was veal tongue with parsnip and sunchoke gratin and radish salad. While it was tasty, it could have been much better. Sadly, I had a late day at work, and ended up rushing the gratin and the tongue out of plain ol hunger. It didn't help that this was the first time I cooked tongue!

I started by gently simmering the whole tongue. Most recipes recommend an hour for this, but I gave it only about 25 minutes. The longer simmering should make it easy to remove the skin, but I had to settle for slicing and scraping it off. After that, I simply sliced and sautéed the tongue with olive oil, salt and pepper. While the taste was good, it was a little on the rubbery side, something I think the longer simmering would have helped.

For the gratin, I began with cooking the parsnips and sunchokes in boiling water until just fork tender. In my rush, I sliced them while they were still a little too hot to touch, and layered them in a small casserole. I tossed them with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and a healthy dose of cream, then put them in the oven at 350 degrees. A few minutes later I impatiently yanked them out and served some for our dinner. I put the rest back in the oven until it was golden-brown - I had a little of it for dessert and it benefited greatly from the extra cooking!

We ate the radish "salad" rolled up in the lettuce leaves, and that was a complete success due to its utter simplicity.

Ingredients:
Cream from Oake Knoll Ayreshires in Foxboro, MA
Radishes from Blue Heron Farms, Lincoln, MA
Lettuce from Bolton Farms, Bolton, MA
Parsnips from Manheim Farm, Whately, MA
Sunchokes from Whole Foods, grown somewhere in VT
Veal tongue from Houde Family Farm, St. Johnsbury, VT

*It turns out I started a week early - this should clear up any numbering confusion.