SubscribeTongue - It Ain’t Pretty, But It’s Tasty
Table of contents for A Little Home Cookin’
- First, We Have to Render Fat
- Replacing Spaghetti, Low-Carb Style
- Guacamole
- Easy Crockpot Ribs
- Cooking A Beef Heart
- Liver Chili
- El Pato Liver
- How To Make Sauerkraut; Or, How To…
- 15-Minute Tilapia
- Tongue - It Ain’t Pretty, But It’s Tasty
- Two Easy Recipes
- Two Very Simple And Tasty Meals: A Steak and A Skillet Meal
- Guest Post: Onion and Parsley Salad
- Beef Peperonata
Tonight’s dinner was boiled beef tongue. Here is a quick step-by-step to making a delicious beef tongue.
First, you thaw the beef tongue, put it in a big pot, and cover it with water. Next, add an onion, a stalk of celery, and herbs of your choosing. The first time I made this I used parsley and bay leaves. Not having either on hand, I opted for dill weed, coriander, and garlic chives. And since I forgot to take a picture of the tongue by itself, here it is shortly after hitting the heat.
I cooked it for about 2 hours (1 hour per pound), first bringing it to a boil, then reducing to simmer the rest of the time. Here it is fully cooked, pre-skinning.
Skinned and de-rooted…
And here is sliced tongue, covered in grated horseradish, with a few stalks of broccoli, all covered in olive oil. The tongue comes out so juicy and delicious that you really don’t need anything to mask the flavor. The horseradish or a bit of mustard fits perfectly with the flavor of the boiled meat. I needed more horseradish though as there wasn’t a touch of kick to what I put on.
The end result: it is basically a super cheap roast. The tongue is an incredibly lean muscle and if you can get over the appearance and having to cut the rough skin off, you’ll be treated to a meal every bit as good as the best roast you’ve thrown into the oven or crockpot, for a fraction of the price. This 1.85lb tongue was less than $4 and it’s grass-fed.
Anyone want to venture a guess at what this is going to become this weekend?
While I haven’t tried it, I will say that you could easily turn the tongue into your soup meat. Perhaps next time I’ll use my large Dutch oven, throw in a few meaty soup bones, the tongue, and plenty of vegetables. After the tongue is done, I’ll remove it, skin it, chop it up, and throw it back into the soup. And of course I’ll get that delicious, nutritious marrow out of the bones too.
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Filed in Recipes and Cooking 8 Comments so far
sarena on 27 Dec 2007 at 12:20 am #
Been looking for natural Kosher tongue. All I could find was regular Kosher with a chemical cocktail added!! Not for this family that’s for sure.
Jay on 27 Dec 2007 at 9:12 am #
Scott;
Tongue is looking yummy.
Going to ask my meat guy to get some soup bones, like the idea of the Tongue/vegetable soup.
Marc on 27 Dec 2007 at 12:42 pm #
My mom used to make tongue when I was young.
My dad loved it, I ate it happily unitl I found out that tongue was really tongue. In my early 20’s I had a tongue sandwhich in New York and loved it.
I going to make some possibly this weekend.
Thanks for your great blog.
Scott Kustes on 29 Dec 2007 at 10:13 am #
Jay, I think it was you talking about getting eggs with tongue at a diner over at CF. Last night’s dinner, I made 3 eggs sunny side up and had them with the last half of the tongue and some more broccoli, all topped with horseradish. Man oh man do those flavors go well together.
Cheers y’all
Scott
Krista on 01 Jan 2008 at 1:46 am #
Thanks for this awesome idea! Inspired by you and the recipe for stewed tongue from one of the best Japanese restaurants in the city, here’s what I made tonight and it was great:
1. Skin and chop the raw tongue into stew-sized chunks.
2. Heat about 1/2 cup water and dissolve a few tablespoons of miso paste in it. Add two big handfuls of dried shiitake mushrooms (you can use fresh, I guess, but the dried ones have a lot more flavour). Let the mushrooms sit in the warm water for a few minutes to rehydrate, then stir in a can of tomato paste.
3. Toss everything into a crockpot and cook on low for 7-8 hours. (The restaurant cooks theirs in a miso-tomato broth for two days, so they claim.)
This goes great with anything that has an earthy taste and a big fat red wine.
Scott Kustes on 02 Jan 2008 at 4:49 pm #
Krista,
Sounds delicious! Thanks for sharing.
Scott
Jay Snipe on 18 Nov 2008 at 2:01 pm #
Hey, I know I’m about a year late here, but you can eat tongue the Japanese/Korean way too - yakiniku. Slice the tongue up into thin vertical slices - maybe about 1/8″ slices. Fry them up in a pan with butter, salt and pepper - they taste great. I’m thinking about adding in some mushrooms next time to soak up some more of the flavor.
Scott Kustes on 20 Nov 2008 at 7:51 pm #
Jay, that sounds awesome. I’m picking up a tongue from the farmer’s market Saturday and going to give this a try.
Cheers
Scott