You have probably looked apprehensively at that pinky, black mottled monstrosity in the cold counter in your local butcher. Here in Botswana is is displayed, not very appetizingly alongside more expensive cuts of meat, and so one is rather forced to gaze upon it.
However, like so many other "peculiar looking" food like prawns, crayfish, eel, the appearance belies the taste. Ox tongue is absolutely delicious and an old traditional English cold cut. In out region it is either cooke to be used cold in sandwiches or as part of a stew or relish to be eaten as a main meal with a starch accompaniment.
The intial cooking for both methods is similar. It is best to cook it whole even for stews because it is easier to remove the membrane covering on the meat.
Very simply, rinse the whole raw tongue well. Trim off any little tubes, fatty and dangly bits that you see and put the whole piece into a pressure cooker. A good teaspoon of salt and start cooking. You can cook this on the stove top, but it takes 5hrs or more to get a tender result.
I add 10 whole black pepper corns and 2 whole cloves. Add a large chopped carrot and garlic if you wish. Cover the tongue with water and then cook for 2 and a half hours in the pressure cooker so it is just hissing. That is medium pressure. Let the cooker depressurize and remove the tongue. Whilst it is fairly hot, use a knife or fork to pull off the outer covering on the tongue. It is thick on top, (the licking side!) and more fragile on the underside.
Here you can see the membrane peeling: Just pull it off in bits.
Clean off anymore bits of yucky stuff and then press the tongue into as small a container as you can. Find something heavy to put on top. (A couple of washed bricks wrapped in clingfilm is great) Let it cool then refrigerate. It is now ready for slicing. You can slice it all and freeze portions or eat it up within a week.
To eat it hot in a stew. I simply cut the tongue into steaks, then strips and return them to the pot. Fish out the cloves. Add another onion and garlic and chilli to taste. Add peeled potatatoes if you intend to serve this stew with potatoes. You may need to add a bit of water. Pressure cook again for 40 minutes. Open the pot and reduce the liquor by simmering gently.
This is the very basic way of serving oxtail in a traditional African way. Sometimes is is just boiled and the resulting gravy is all there is to eat with it. It is often eaten as relish with mealie pap or sorghum pap in our region.
Close up of texture or the relish.
I ate tongue a lot as a kid growing up on a beef farm. My mom would cook it in pickling spices, vinegar, water, and some sugar and then slice it thin for tongue sandwiches. I never knew that other people were so grossed out by it until I got older!
ReplyDeleteThat is pretty much how I cooked and ate it. Sliced thin as cold meat. But Africans here commonly cook it as a stew which can be very nice. I have a joke with my kids whilst they eating tongue..."Can you feel it licking you?" Corny, I know, but when they were small they creased up!!
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