Beef Tongue and (in) Cheek

[athinaeos]

Fellow Food Aficionados!

Today my friendly butcher promised to supply me early next week with fresh beef's tongue and cheeks.

As I am very rusty on cooking these parts, could you kindly make suggestions.

Many thanks!

[chef koo]

funny you should bring this up. we just had tongue for our staff meal tonite. franck our chef made it for us. he just simmered it in a court bouillon until it was tender. then he peeled off the skin. he sliced it and served half of it as is and the other half he breaded and pan fried. he served it with eggs mimosa

[deltadoc]

While I am absolutely positive I read this somewhere many years ago, I've never been able to substantiate it. However, it would seem to make sense since my understanding is that beef tongue is rather bland:

I read that they used to make pastrami out of beef tongue (after removing the lining).

doc

[chef koo]

it's true. i frequend this local deli where they make tongue sandwiches. the tongue's been cured and then cooked in the brine

[petite tête de chou]

My nanny used to simmer a whole tongue with pickling spices to make Monte Cristo sandwiches with. She would pack the meat onto slices of rye bread with dark mustard, dip in a fairly thick batter and shallow fry them.

[cricklewood]

As for the cheeks, trim the outer silverskin and fat around it. Then you can sear and braise according to your favorite method, it's a great cut to use when you have leftovers you can shred them and use them as a base filling for ravioli or just toss with pasta and reduced braising liquid. When served whole the cheeks have a large nerve down the center wich is the only downer, other than that it is excellent, really beefy flavoured meat, I think you can find a few recipes on epicurious. As for the tongue, the only time I worked with it was at school, we poached it in courtbouillon and then peeled it, sliced it and finished cooking it in a tomato sauce to serve with pasta. Hope this helps a bit.

[Shalmanese]

I've been mulling over this for a few days now but I can't seem to get it. Heres what I have so far:

Tounge is simmered, deskinned, pan/deep fried.

Cheek is braised whole, then a slit is cut into it and the deep fried tounge is inserted into the slit. The entire thing is then wrapped in puff pastry and baked until golden.

The title of the dish: Tounge in Cheek

[athinaeos]

Thank you all for your contribution. I must say that the "tongue in cheek" designer dish attracted my attention for its bold statement, while the calm and restrained power of the traditional simmering in court bullion reassured me that there is a domain of eternal senses and tastes. The Monte Cristo sandwich is a smart newcomer in my book, and the pastrami a target for my next visit to a good deli. Alas, I have not yet decided which recipe to follow. So please wait, I assure you that once I have prepared something, I will post it.

[bleudauvergne]

Sometimes less is more in these cases, I mean what's better than a nice sliced corned tongue sandwich with mayo onions and pepper between two slices of milk bread? I wouldn't even fry it, because I think brined tongue is better cold. But I've got a nostalgic element interfering with my judgement.

[murraygrey]

When I was little, my uncle would take me to neighborhood baseball games. The older ladies of the neighborhood would bring homemade tamales to the games and sell them. The meat in the tamales was boiled tongue. They were fantastic tamales!

Fellow Food Aficionados!

Today my friendly butcher promised to supply me early next week with fresh beef's tongue and cheeks.

As I am very rusty on cooking these parts, could you kindly make suggestions.

Many thanks!

←

[rotuts]

I love Tongue sliced thin in a sandwich.

 

very difficult to find.  I haven't had a tongue sandwich in a very long time.

 

in deli's of Yore, was the tongue pickled ?

 

i know this is an odd question, but if you have a deli near you that has tongue would you consider asking ?

 

this is one of  ( many ) preps  i.e. SV Im thinking of putting on my ToDo list :

 

SV tongue

 

thanks