Pt. 2 Cooking with Offal - Tacos de Lengua
Beef. Tongue. It isn’t a cute piece of meat, I am going to let you guys know that up front. Cooking with tongue is not for the faint of heart, because there is a great deal of prep work for this piece of meat, and it is not a delicate process. However! Once past the prep work, the tongue just looks like a piece of meat and tastes like a delicious brisket.
This is my recipe for Tacos de Lengua, or Tongue Tacos. There is one essential step that cannot be overlooked when cooking tongue, and that is removing the rough outer layer of skin. The tongue, well, is a tongue and therefore is rough, tough and bumpy. But the meat underneath is not! To get to that meat, you need to boil the tongue until it becomes soft enough to peel off - refer to my videos below. The tongue boiled in a mixture of water, black peppercorn, bay leaf, and coriander seed.
Once peeled, the world is your oyster with this! Under the skin will be delicious, tender meat that is great for tacos, sandwiches, pasta, meatballs, anything you could do with normal ground beef.
For my tacos, I marinated the tongue in a mix of the following
Mexican Oregano
Smoked paprika
Red Chili Flake
Chili Powder
Garlic Powder
Salt and Pepper
Dried Cilantro
Cumin
Fresh squeezed lime and orange juice
Once that marinated for a few hours, I put the tongue on the grill outside, just to get a little color and smokiness on it. I sliced it and that was it! Delicious tacos that you would NEVER know were tongue had you not been told.
Quick side note - we enjoyed this with some delicious Elote - Mexican Street Corn - recipe below.
Corn on the cob
Mayonaise
Queso Fresco or Cotija
Chili Powder or Tajín
Hot sauce
Fresh Cilantro
Grill your corn and allow to cook slightly (mayo will melt off if too hot) Spread a layer of Mayonaise onto the corn, then sprinkle with your choice of Mexican cheese, and a dusting of chili powder or Tajín. Top with a drizzle of hot sauce, some fresh cilantro leaves, and a squeeze of lime.
As for the tongue - I finely shredded the leftover meat and tossed with my homemade BBQ sauce. We had pulled tongue sandwiches the next day, and they were also super delicious.
Cooking tongue is easy, you just need to get past the first step! Let me know if you give this recipe a try and your thoughts on cooking tongue!
¡Salud!