James's Ox Tongue In Piquant Sauce

1 1/2 kg pickled ox tongue
50 gm streaky bacon cut into strips
6 x anchovy fillets soaked drained and cut into strips
4 tbl olive oil
25 gm butter
1 x carrot diced
1 clv garlic crushed
1 x salt pepper
1 tbl chopped parsley
1 tsp dried basil
300 ml dry white wine
150 ml water
1 x pickled gherkin diced
20 gm capers roughly chopped
1 tbl corn flour
150 ml soured cream
2 x tomatoes quartered
6 sprg parsley

Soak the ox tongue in water for 1 hour.
Drain.
Cook in boiling water for 1 hour.
Drain remove the skin and gristle.
Make incisions in the tongue and insert the strips of bacon and anchovy.
Heat the oil and butter in a pan add the carrot garlic crushed with salt parsley and basil and fry for 5 minutes stirring.
Put the tongue in the pan and brown on all sides for 5 minutes.
Pour in the wine and water add seasoning cover and stew for 2 hours.
Remove the tongue from the pan and keep hot on a dish.
Sieve the remaining contents of the pan and return to the pan.
Add the gherkin and capers.
Mix the cornflour with a little water and add to the sauce.
Bring to the boil remove from the heat and stir in the soured cream.
Do not reboil the sauce.
Cut the tongue into slices 1cm thick and arrange on a dish.
Pour some of the sauce over and serve the rest separately.
Garnish with tomato quarters and sprigs of parsley.
Serves 6

The decent moderation of today will be the least of human things tomorrow. At the time of the Spanish Inquisition, the opinion of good sense and of the good medium was certainly that people ought not to burn too large a number of heretics; extreme and unreasonable opinion obviously demanded that they should burn none at all.

- Maurice Maeterlinck