Pastrami de la lengueta

[Dave the Cook]

First, allow me to introduce the subjects of this exercise:

Tongues. Well, not just tongues, but Kobe beef tongues (who knew there was such a thing?)

They're no more mine than they are the cows that used to own them. You know this is true, because if they were mine, the first thing I'd do is wonder why I had four beef tongues, and the title of topic would be something else entirely. A friend gave them to me for safekeeping -- and for smoking. He had already corned them (look close and you can see peppercorns and cloves strewn about the profuse and protruding bovine taste buds).

"I want a real hard smoke on them," he said.

"What, like pastrami?" I asked. My friend knows what he wants but isn't necessarily great at the specifics.

"Like with black pepper and coriander? Yeah. Awesome."

A beat.

"But we're gonna peel it before we serve it. I guess some of the spice will get through, won't it?"

My guess is no, or not enough to be worth the trouble. And you can't -- well, shouldn't -- peel a tongue when it's in the raw state; at least that's my understanding. Maybe someone can confirm that, or has better information than I do, but until that better information comes along, I'm going to press on.

My plan:

• Cold smoke for several hours, then gently increase the temperature until the meat hits 130 F.
  
• Let the meat cool and firm up just a bit. All I care about is the outer meat at this point, but I'm minding Joy of Cooking, which says, ". . . allow it to cool just enough to handle comfortably. It skins easily at the this point, but not if you let it get cold."
  
• Peel and apply rub.
  
• Hot smoke to 170 F internal.
  

A friend suggested looking in Mastering the Art, which seems like a good idea. Unfortunately, I don't have it. Another cohort suggested injecting an infusion of pepper and coriander. I could be wrong -- I haven't had tongue since I was a kid -- but I recall tongue as basically undifferentiated muscle. I can imagine the infusion just pooling up in pockets and not flavoring much of the meat.

Has anyone else done anything like this? Any tips? Who knows tongue?

I'm also open to sympathy for having taken on the awesome responsibility of caring for someone else's offal.

[stephle]

Dave, your tongue is beautiful I think this calls for some corning before smoking -- just like you would pastrami. I've actually done this with tongue of a less elegant pedigree and it came out delicious. No need to pre-peel (too hard to do on a raw tongue anyway--have you ever tried this? Dangerous and not fun to do).

I put the following together and rubbed it all over the tongue:

1/4 cup Morton Tender Quick

1/3 cup dark brown sugar, packed

2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons granulated garlic

2 tablespoons ground coriander

After rubbing this stuff liberally all over, I sealed it with my seal-a-meal and stuck it in the fridge for I think it was about 3 days (turned it a couple of times as juices started to develop).

Took it out of the bag and rinsed well then soaked in bowl of cold water for 30 mins. While it was soaking, I setup the BBQ.

Before throwing it onto the smoke, I rubbed it again with some ground coriander, powdered garlic and some black pepper and I seem to recall a teeny pinch of allspice for flavor.

I smoked mine for about 2 hours over slow smoke/heat to get the flavor into it -- you're looking for internal temp of at least 170 but IIRC if you take it up past 190 it'll start falling apart like bbq brisket.

It was pretty darn tasty if I do say so myself -- made really good and spicy sandwiches. I will admit however that I'm actually partial to taking the tongue right after it's finished corning and throwing it into my pressure cooker for an hour. That thing comes out SO juice your mouth will water. Makes the BEST sandwiches you can imagine.

Either way, you're blessed to have such great tongues. Make sure you post pix of the final result!!! steph.

Edited June 24, 2007 by stephle (log)

[Henry dV]

How about working at a tangent, slice the membrane lengthwise and dry salt with the spices this way there will be a 2 way transfer of fluids out and spice flavour in ??

What kind of smoker are you using ?

[Dave the Cook]

. . . .

I put the following together and rubbed it all over the tongue:

1/4 cup Morton Tender Quick

1/3 cup dark brown sugar, packed

2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons granulated garlic

2 tablespoons ground coriander

After rubbing this stuff liberally all over, I sealed it with my seal-a-meal and stuck it in the fridge for I think it was about 3 days (turned it a couple of times as juices started to develop).

Yeah, I think this is essential for both flavor and safety. By the time I got these guys, the corning step had already been done: a couple of days in a brine of salt, sugar, DQ-2 (very similar to Tender Quick), coriander and cloves.

Before throwing it onto the smoke, I rubbed it again with some ground coriander, powdered garlic and some black pepper and I seem to recall a teeny pinch of allspice for flavor.

This is pretty close to what I'm doing. I'm going to stick to a more traditional pastrami coating of toasted-then-crushed black pepper and coriander, but I like the garlic and allspice idea.

I smoked mine for about 2 hours over slow smoke/heat to get the flavor into it -- you're looking for internal temp of at least 170 but IIRC if you take it up past 190 it'll start falling apart like bbq brisket. 

Thanks for the temperature guideline -- that was something I couldn't find anywhere.

How about working at a tangent, slice the membrane lengthwise and dry salt with the spices this way there will be a 2 way transfer of fluids out and spice flavour in ??

What kind of smoker are you using ?

←

I'm not following you -- are you suggesting this as a pre-smoke treatment? Might be a good idea.

As for the smoker, it's a Bradley, as you can see here (those are some no-so-great tomatoes -- another experiment -- on the shelf below):

These were on hickory for about eight hours at 85 F (hey, he said "hard smoke," right?). I ramped up the heat element to bring the internal temperature up; it's at 125 F now, so I'll pull them shortly and peel as soon as I can handle them. Then I'll pack with the spice mixture and do a hot smoke to 170 F.

[Henry dV]

How about working at a tangent, slice the membrane lengthwise and dry salt with the spices this way there will be a 2 way transfer of fluids out and spice flavour in ??

What kind of smoker are you using ?

←

I'm not following you -- are you suggesting this as a pre-smoke treatment? Might be a good idea.

As for the smoker, it's a Bradley

←

Sorry, I did mean it as a pre smoking treatment, I rarely do anything different.

I`ve never tried it, but I think that for smoking you need to get as much surface area bathed in smoke to maximise the transfer of all those tasty smokey flavanoids, and to that end I`d try to skin the brutes.

I like the Bradley smokers but the discs are costly and I have access to lots of hardwoods and I have the chainsaw on standby. I hope to have a more traditional smoker up and running in the autumn/winter for cold smoking of game and fish.