Beef tongue belongs in the category of foods that you wonder, why on earth someone would want to eat it, and once you taste it, you hate yourself for not having tried it sooner. In this post, I introduced: After 30 years of living in China, there’s no piece of offal that seems strange to me. However, I don’t usually cook with offal (except pork feet). My mom was not at all enthusiastic about me cooking with offal. As a result, I didn’t have the chance to cook much of it, as compared to many Chinese households. After moving to the US, the chance to cook offal seemed even rarer, since people do not have the habit of eating strange parts of an animal. To my surprise, I found beef tongue at H-E-B and didn’t have to travel 40 minutes to the Asian market. (HEB is the Texas equivalent of a Safeway, Kroger, or Albertsons). Raw beef tongue is not even a common product in China. You can get a cooked one at the market. But raw tongue is considered a luxury ingredient and you are more likely to find it on the menu of a Korean or Japanese BBQ restaurant. Later on, I learned that Mexican cuisine also uses beef tongue extensively, where it’s called lengua. There is even a famous taco dish called tacos de lengua. Although I’d never tried these tacos before, I couldn’t wait to try cooking them at home, after my friend and reader Tom shared his favorite tacos de lengua recipe with me (adapted from the slow cooker lengua from Allrecipes).
To my total surprise, cooking beef tongue is the easiest thing in the world. Even easier than cooking with regular beef. You simply need to add a few herbs and slow cook it for a few hours. That’s it. Whenever you want to serve it, simply slice it into smaller pieces, sprinkle some salt on it, and brown it in a hot pan. What you get is a piece of meat that has a rich beefy flavor, a crispy crust, and a buttery texture. Beef tongue is definitely something I’ll add to my daily recipe list. Because: The most basic way to serve beef tongue is to slice it really thin, sprinkle sea salt on it, and sear until crispy. It’ll be a wonderful snack or appetizer that goes well with beer.
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Tacos de Lengua
After cooking the beef tongue, of course we made tacos with it. The tacos had very simple toppings – homemade salsa, red onion, queso casera, and cilantro. I suppressed my urge to dump cheese and sour cream on it. After one bite, I realized it really didn’t need any more toppings. The beef tongue was so powerful a touch of homemade salsa and fresh cheese was just perfect 🙂
If you give this recipe a try, let us know! Leave a comment, rate it (once you’ve tried it), and take a picture and tag it #omnivorescookbook on Instagram! I’d love to see what you come up with. Cheers, friends!
Chinese Beef Tongue Salad
After making tacos, I started to spin off from the original recipe. I tried it the Chinese way, and served the beef tongue in a savory hot sauce, and it was SO GOOD. Although we have some beef tongue dishes in China, I like my version much better. The traditional Chinese way of serving beef tongue is to slow cook it with many herbs (such as cooking wine, soy sauce, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, Sichuan peppercorns, etc.). Let it marinate overnight. Then serve it cold with a garlicky, savory sauce. However, I realized the texture of beef tongue gets much better if you sear it and serve it warm. Plus, you can add as much flavor as you want afterwards, in the sauce. This means you just need one simple recipe, the one listed on the first page, to slow cook the beef tongue, and you can then use it in many different cuisines. So here it is – the Chinese beef tongue salad with chili oil and seasoned soy sauce, developed from a Mexican recipe 🙂
