...distrusting food that tastes me back!

Finding a good title for a blog entry is similar to finding a title to an episode on a reality show. Confession time. My wife and I really enjoy watching The Amazing Race. Yes, it's our weekly guilty pleasure and we even applied to be on the show. Unfortunately we don't qualify as "eye candy" so our application was probably placed in the recycling bin. I for one think that we would make an awesome team and even elevate it with some drama with some fake tears and start throwing temper tantrums during the stressful parts of the show. 

Question: What does this have to do with food? Let's step back a "couple of years" ago when I was a youngster. I remembered when my parents took my sister and I to New York on vacation. One of the best items we had at a deli was a strange meat - pickled beef tongue. I remembered it as being smoky with an incredbile texture and taste. Okay, fast forward a few years to March 2009. Wife and I visted great friends of mine, Jen and Ken in New York City. We went to 2nd Ave Deli Restaurant one evening. All those great memories from way back when suddenly came back and I knew I had to order pickled tongue! The taste was unforgettable and almost better than... I was in heaven! I know, I know the first words are probably -- ewww, gross, or disgusting. You really have to try it. I prefer the center cut where the marbling has some of the fatty tissue.

Fast forward 3 weeks to the month of June. While the wife was at work one night I decided to try my hand at making pickled tongue. Keep in mind that pickled doesn't always mean sour like pickles. It means that it has been brined for awhile before cooking. In fact the same technique to pickled tongue is the same for corned beef. After work one day I went to local Japanese grocery store and found a fresh 4 lb tongue vacuum packed. Since then I found other Asian stores carrying frozen beef tongue but a little cheaper.  Here is a photo of the tongue on the chopping board:

There is a very good reason why the wife was at work when I prepped the brine. She would probably have screamed if she saw this on the chopping board and I would probably have needed to dust off the sleeping bag for a night. To pickle the beef tongue, I used the following for the brine:

1 1/4 cups of good quality kosher salt (the pink stuff)

1 1/2 tbl of "modern cure"

3/4 cup of packed dark brown sugar

1/8 cup of pickling spice

8 cloves of fresh garlic

What is modern cure? When you cook tongue like most meat, it turns gray. To avoid the gray look you can add a very small amount of potassium nitrate, also known as saltpeter to brine. This keeps the pinkish color of the meat after cooking similar to bacon. It doesn't affect the overall flavor. Too much potassium nitrate can also be very toxic. Modern cure is very difficult to find. A small package is enough to cure about 100lb of meat. I was able to find this at a local butcher shop - Golden Steer Choice Meats. I had my wife pick it up one afternoon not knowing what it was for. She regrets it now.

I mixed all the ingredients together in a 1 gallon ziplock bag, add the tongue and filled it up with water. You need to make it as airtight as possible so the tongue is completely submersed in the brine. I added a second 1 gallon zip lock bag to prevent it from leaking. I placed it in a bowl and put it in refrigerator for 10 days - the second fridge in the garage. I recommend that you turn it over every other day.

On the 10th day, I took it out of the fridge and cooked it for 4 hours. The recommended way of cooking a pickled tongue is to place it in cold water first and bring it to a boil. Pour out the water and start again with fresh cold water and bring it to a boil. You do this process 3 times and on the 3rd time you let it simmer for at least 3-4 hours. After the 4th hour pour out the water and rinse with cold water. There will be an outer membrane that you have to peel off while the tongue is still warm.

You can eat it right away or as I prefer is to put in the fridge overnight and eat it cold. It turned out very well for a first time! There are a couple of things I would do differently the second time around. I would poke it with a sharp needle in different places to allow the brine to soak in more. Parts of the center was a little gray since the brine didn't penetrate through. I was also brine it for 14 days instead of 10 days for a little more flavor. The recommendation from one cookbook is 3 days per pound. I prefer 3.5 days per pound. I would also like to try to sous vide cook it next time around. This would be another blog entry on another day. 

I actually posted these photos on facebook and to my surprise I received 25 negative comments from my friends and I think 2 positive comments. I even brought it over to a pot luck at work the next day. There were a few brave souls that actually tried it and enjoyed it!  Honestly the taste is slightly similar to corned beef but 10 times better.

If any other brave souls out there decide to try this, please drop me a comment!

P.S. The title came from a friend of mine who posted this comment on my facebook...