Tongue tied

Recipes fascinate me, they give a look through a port hole of a specific time and place. I love reading old cook books and try to imagine what the food looks and tastes like in years gone by.

Recently i was going through a old book and came across a interesting dish involving a ox tongue and some mushrooms......
OX TONGUE AND MUSHROOM CRUMBLE
1.5 kg of uncooked ox tongue
1 carrot
2 onions
bouquet garni
300ml of dry cider
water
125g butter
125g mushrooms
1 tablespoon of flour
6 dry white wine
50g fresh white breadcrumbs
salt
pepper

Buy the tongue pickled and soak it overnight in water. To cook the tongue, put it in a large pan with carrot, chopped, and one of the onions coarsely chopped. Add the bouquet garni, cider and enough water to cover by one inch. Bring to the boil and skim and cover. Leave to simmer until the tongue is cooked about 2 hours. Remove to a dish and peel off the skin. Strain the stock into a jug.
To assemble the dish, slice the tongue and place in the bottom of a shallow, buttered oven proof dish. Cook the slice mushrooms in 30g of butter, season them and distribute evenly over the tongue slices. Cook the onion in 60g of butter in a small heavy pan, do not let the onions brown. Stir in the flour, cook for two minutes, add the wine and stock to make a thin sauce, then tip over the tongue slices.
Melt the last bit of butter, mix in the crumbs and spread on top of the dish. Bake at 190 degrees until the crumbs are nicely browned. Serve at once.