Mm, tongue… Tongue sandwich on Night Work Sourdough Rye.
I was at the Honest Weight Co-op in Albany and ran into my Yelp friend Louise G. She was eager to show me the offal that had just come in… isn’t it great to have friends like that? A cute little Hardwick beef tongue (just under 2 pounds; the average is more like 3-4 pounds) called out to me and practically jumped into my shopping cart. It was time for a refresher course in how to cook and eat tongue.
My Hardwick tongue. Isn’t he a cutie?
Every recipe I found says you should boil the tongue, so that’s what I did. (A particularly fussy NYT Cooking recipe says it absorbs liquid as it cooks, which I found to be the case.) I washed my little guy and submerged it in water along with onion, garlic, a carrot, a tablespoon of pickling spices, a dozen black peppercorns and a couple of Bill Penzey’s wonderful bay leaves) and we were off to the races. Some recipes call for beef stock, some for a splash of vinegar, but I opted for plain water with other liquids to be added later if desired.
Most recipes want you to cook tongue a really long time, but the Woolgrower’s Basque Tongue recipe I had referred to in a previous exploration says 50 minutes per pound and indeed it was fork tender after 2 hours. I left the tongue to slowly cool on its own and it was still slightly warm when I peeled it 2 hours later. Now to eat me some tongue!
Setup for my tongue boil. I would have added celery if I had some. And yes, the pan is too small to submerge the tongue; it was transferred to a bigger pot later.
My mother in Dallas actually served tongue for dinner from time to time. (I can’t imagine her peeling it so have to believe she bought it pre-cooked which you could do at a butcher in those days.) It was always sliced and served cold with Heinz Chili Sauce, which I recall is like cocktail sauce but sweeter. I loved it. Later I would encounter tongue sandwiches at Jewish delis, lengua tacos at Mexican food trucks and that Basque picked tongue when I drove through California’s Central Valley and every one was delicious. Tongue has a yielding texture and a beefier-than-beef flavor; what’s not to like except for those creepy bumps?
Peeling the tongue. It’s easier to do if it is slightly warm and the skin toward the tip is easier to remove than the back.
I had gotten the idea somehow that tongue should be allowed to cool before you peel it. This is dead wrong. Let it rest in the stock till it’s cool enough to handle and the skin will come off much more easily. I will reserve the best shaped pieces for the Basque recipe, then make myself a tongue sandwich with some of the less perfect slices using horseradish and a bit of mayo for moisture on some wonderful Night Work Sourdough Rye with a Bubbie’s dill on the side. The meat at the base of the tongue is less well-formed and will go into the freezer for a future meal of lengua tacos. And that’s how I cook and eat my tongue.
P.S. Don’t throw out that cooking stock! It is full of flavor and a nice amount of fat. Add back the skin you have peeled off the tongue and cook the liquid down by half, then strain to remove solids and refrigerate. This stock can become the base for a future soup, or maybe (with butter, flour and a splash of vinegar) a sauce to serve over your tongue slices.
