Transforming a tough, throw-away part of the animal into something beautiful and delicious is the true measure of a cook. A few weeks ago I had dinner at my favorite Austin restaurant, Foreign & Domestic. The special that night was thinly sliced pastrami cured beef tongue, and it was outstanding.
The experience motivated me to try making it myself. I had toyed with the idea of tongue pastrami for a long time. Last year I made it with the traditional brisket and wanted to substitute tongue, a much cheaper and leaner cut of meat.
We ordered some tongues from Richardson Farms. Five pounds of locally raised meat for $14 was a steal. I prepared a sweet and savory brine flavored with salt, homemade pickling spice, garlic, sugar, brown sugar, and honey. Adding some sodium nitrite gave the meat a beautiful pink color and the familiar pastrami-like flavor.
I cooled the brine and submerged the tongues in the liquid where they pickled for 3 days. Then I rinsed them off, coated them in ground black peppercorn and coriander seeds, and smoked them for about 8 hours.
That’s the tongue pastrami overview so you can prepare yourself 3 days in advance. Here’s the step-by-step procedure adapted from Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn’s Charcuterie:
Brine:
- 1 gallon water
- 1 1/2 cups kosher salt
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 8 teaspoons pink salt (sodium nitrite)
- 1 tablespoon picking spice
- 1/4 cup honey
- 5 garlic cloves, crushed
- One or two beef tongues
- 2 tablespoons coriander seeds, lightly toasted
- 2 tablespoons black peppercorns, lightly toasted
1. Combine the brine ingredients in a pot large enough to hold the tongues. Bring the water to a boil. Remove from heat and let the brine cool to room temperature.
2. Submerge the tongues in the brine. Place a plate on top to keep the meat covered with the brine and prevent it from floating. Refrigerate for 3 or 4 days.
3. Remove the tongues from the brine. Rinse them, pat dry, and set aside. Get rid of that brine!
4. Grind the coriander and peppercorn mixture in spice grinder or food processor. Coat the tongues with it on all sides.
5. Hot-smoke the tongues until they reach an internal temperature of 150 degrees. (Try to keep the smoking temperature as low as possible so the tongues can smoke for a long as possible. We smoked ours overnight)
6. Let the tongues rest for a few hours after smoking. To prepare the meat for eating, slice it as thinly as possible. Heat it in a pan, or steam it before serving.
12 comments :
Did you peel the tongue after smoking? I’ve heard of corning beef tongue before, but I haven’t researched too much into it.
We left it on for this- it was difficult to peel off!
What a woman! That’s quite a vivid, colorful (and somewhat disgusting) sight…and you handled it! Actually, I grew up eating tongue that my mom braised/roasted in the oven. I don’t remember ever seeing it raw….I guess she kept it from us kids lest we get revolted by the sight and connection with the sweet cows living down the street at the two milk farms. She just told us it was beef and good for us! She had to figure out how to feed a family of 9 on a budget. Anyway, what you did with it looks amazing!
Thanks! Dustin handled them when they were really bloody, but this is what they looked like when they came out of the brine. I thought bloody tongues might be a bit too much.
You are amazing. For real.
Thanks! It was a team effort- I get lots of help from Dustin.
I am going to be trying your recipe on Tuesday when I pick up the meat from the butcher. I have a wonderful smoker that is perfect for overnight smokes. Just a couple of questions:
What kind of wood did you used for your smoke?
When you say low, how low, I have done overnight smokes with 190, but I can easily go lower.
Did you try taking off the ski before brining or after? My husband said he had tongue in Asia and they did remove the skin…just curious if you would have preferred the skin off, do you think it would have taken in more brine and smoke that way?
I really appreciate this, thanks so much, Vicki B.
Hi Vicki! I’m not a tongue smoking expert, but I’ll try to answer as best I can. We use wood from our yard- usually pecan or oak. Something neutral and smokey would be great, but you could experiment with more flavorful woods. We smoked it at 150, but it was still a little tough. I’m curious if a bit more heat would break down some of that connective tissue. I think taking off the skin would be a great idea, but it was so difficult to remove that we gave up. Yes, the meat would likely absorb more brine and smoke without it, but I don’t know if that’s a good thing. It might be too salty, and the smoke could dry it out. Please let me know if you have any other questions!
Hi Meredith, I have a smoking forum that I visit multiple time a day. It is related to the wonderful smoker that I use (cookshack). I did get some advice related to smoking the tongue and removing or at least scoring the skin is recommended. I do think it would take on more brine as you said, perhaps too salty. Was your saltiness just right compared to other pastramies on the market. I may have to adjust the brining time in that case. I will be using pecan wood, as that is what I recently purchased for my beef smokes, (I use apple for pork, etc). I will probably smoke at around 190 degrees for an overnight. Was the finishing meat temp of 150 written in a recipe or just something you felt would work? Folks on the forum usually smoke beef products to a higher temp. Somewhere around 185 – 190 internal. With all the brining and the fact that my smoker is a moist environment, I think I will be okay with longer cooking times/more smoke. One more very impt question, the pink salt you refer to – which brand do you use? Is that instacure #1, or some other sodium nitrate product, because when using it directly in meat, it usually calls for a teaspoon to cure 25lbs of meat, that’s what I am told. Thanks again so much for your replies. Vicki
Yes, the saltiness and flavor of the tongue was perfect, so you might consider it brining it for less than 3 days if you remove the skin. We smoked the tongue to an internal temp of 150 because that is what Michael Ruhlman suggested in his recipe for pastrami (using beef brisket) in his book “Charcuterie.” The pink salt is sodium nitrite that I picked up at a store here in Austin. It’s instacure #1. I used the brine recipe from Ruhlman’s book. Thanks for the great questions- let me know how it turns out!
I will let u know, and thanks for all the great answers, I know what I need to now to begin my adventure.
I did this last year with water buffalo tongue! It was extraordinary. No one could guess what it was. Thank you for the inspiration to make this again.