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As a family with a lot of small children, we love to cook and serve tender, tasty meat options such as this recipe for beef tongue. Did you know beef tongue are one of the most tender parts of meat?
When prepared correctly, beef tongue can be fall apart tender, juicy and extremely flavourful.
To my beloved son, Prince Lionheart
I know you will not remember, but beef tongue was one of your first and favourite foods! You where such a precious and courageous baby. Because of your cleft (full story here), it was quite difficult for you to drink and eat because whenever you sneezed, your milk or food would come through your nose. I always felt so sorry for you but it was as if you didn’t know any better (you didn’t) and was just so excepting of almost any situation with contentment.
For the first few months of your life it was a daily struggle and concern to make sure you drank and ate enough. At first you had to have a nasogastric tube (feeding pipe through your nose), and feedings would last 45 minutes. Starting with a cleft speciality bottle for as long as you could tolerate it, then the rest of your feeding we had to give you through your tube as what you drank was not enough to sustain you. On top of that you made sure we never had a dull moment by pulling your tube out every few days! Most of the time it felt like we would never get past those difficult days. But here we are 6 years later and you are a joyful, positive and loving oldest brother to all your siblings and we feel so privileged to be your parents!
You were and still are such an inspiration for me and everyone in our home.
I hope you will make beef tongue in your own home one day and think back to all the special memories we have together.
Is beef tongue healthy?
Beef tongue is absolutely healthy, filled with:
Minerals, including:
- Iron
- Zinc
- Choline
Vitamins, including:
- Vitamin B12
Fats
- About 70% of calories are from fats
Amino acids
Collagen
- About 14% of the protein consists of collagen.
Different ways to cook Beef Tongue
- Slow cooker or pot – about 6-8 hours depending on the size of the tongue
- Pressure cooker – about 2 hours
- Grill – after cooking until almost done (about 5 hours in slow cooker, or 1.5 hours in pressure cooker) you can grill it on high to add a delicious smoky flavour to the meat.
To pickle or not to pickle
Beef tongue is pure muscle and thus pretty tough to start with if not prepared correctly. One way to ensure you have a perfectly tender and flavourfull end result is to pickle the tongue first for at least 3 days.
When buying pickled beef tongue, you will find it much more pink than a ‘raw’ beef tongue. This is because the butchery normally use a ‘pickling salt’ that includes sodium nitrate. We are not too fond of this as it is a preservative. It does help toe keep the meat looking appealing, also helps to hinder bacteria growth, tenderises and adds flavour. In our family we do try to stay away fron any preservatives and unneccessary additives. Just work clean and hygenic, keep your workplace clean and do net let the meat sit out for too long when it is not cooking.
You can definitely skip the pickling step and just cook the tongue for a little longer with a few spices(even just salt is fine too) and you will still end up with a beautifully succulent meat at the end.
How to pickle a beef tongue
Still something I am experimenting with, but the main principle is to ‘soak’ the meat in a salty brine for 3-14 days, sometimes even longer, making sure the meat stays submerged the entire time. This ‘preserves’ the meat, tenderise it and gives it a salty, pickled flavour, depending on the spices you choose to use.
For the mean time this is a good recipe to follow.
Soon I will share my own recipe, so stay tuned!
Tender Beef Tonge Recipe For Pressure Cooker
Ingredients
- 1 Beef tongue
- 1 Onion
- 2 Carrots
- 4 Garlic cloves
- 2 Tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp cloves
- 1/2 tap cumin
Method
- Make sure tongue is clean by washing it under running water.
- Roughly chop veggies and garlic
- Heat some olive oil in your pressure cooker and quickly roast the veggies
- When they begin to brown add tongue and cover with water, about 1.5L.
- Add salt and spices and close the pot.
- Set it to maximum pressure, on my manual pot it is setting 2.
- Cook for 2 hours on high.
- Let pressure cooker release pressure gradually.
- Open lid when safety button released.
- Take tongue out carefully and set it on a plate to cool for 10-15minutes.
- Use your hands to remove the thick skin of the tongue, it should remove very easily while the tonge is still hot.
- Now you can cut it across the grain.
- With the remaining sauce and veggies you can make da delicious thick sauce to be served with the tongue.
- Mix 1/2cup of milk with 1/2cup of flour and add it to the sauce and veggies.
- On low to medium heat keep stirring so no lumps form.
- When it thickens and start to boil, turn heat down so it just simmers for 5minutes.
- Taste to make sure it is not too salty.
- If it is a bit salty, just add a little milk until it tastes the way you like it.
- Ready to serve with your choice of starch.
Tender Beef Tongue In A Pressure Cooker
Ingredients
- 1 Beef tongue
- 1 Onion
- 2 Carrots
- 4 Garlic cloves
- 2 Tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp cloves
- 1/2 tap cumin
Instructions
- Make sure tongue is clean by washing it under running water.
- Roughly chop veggies and garlic
- Heat some olive oil in your pressure cooker and quickly roast the veggies
- When they begin to brown add tongue and cover with water, about 1.5L.
- Add salt and spices and close the pot.
- Set it to maximum pressure, on my manual pot it is setting 2.
- Cook for 2 hours on high.
- Let pressure cooker release pressure gradually.
- Open lid when safety button released.
- Take tongue out carefully and set it on a plate to cool for 10-15minutes.
- Use your hands to remove the thick skin of the tongue, it should remove very easily while the tongue is still hot.
- Now you can cut it across the grain.
- With the remaining sauce and veggies you can make da delicious thick sauce to be served with the tongue.
- Mix 1/2cup of milk with 1/2cup of flour and add it to the sauce and veggies.
- On low to medium heat keep stirring so no lumps form.
- When it thickens and start to boil, turn heat down so it just simmers for 5minutes.
- Taste to make sure it is not too salty.
- If it is a bit salty, just add a little milk until it tastes the way you like it.
- Ready to serve with your choice of starch.
Ways to serve beef tongue
- Meat in main course
- Cold meat for sandwiches
- Cubed in Mac and cheese
I love you so very much my son
I pray that you will keep growing in courage and contentment as it is lost virtues in our wicked world.
Your loving mother
Queen, of our humble home.
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