Beef tongue is a wonderful delicacy in many cultures. If you get lucky, you might spot one or two in your local supermarkets. For me, I haven’t seen any in Scarborough for a long time. I think some restaurants reserve them directly from the butchers, so you can rarely find one in your supermarket. But, lately I found quite a few ones in a Walmart Supercentre near Steeles. About 8-10 of them, $11/kg, roughly $15-20 each, very fresh, not frozen.
Usually we just add salt and pepper and boil it like 2-3 hours, then the meat will become so tender that you don’t even need a knife to cut it. The biggest problem is to remove the white tough skin off the tongue. Here is how we do it. First, put the tongue in a pot, cover it with water, and bring it to a boil for 15 minutes. Replace the water with new one. Boil it again for another hour. Take it out, leave it for 5-10 minutes till you can hold it and peel the skin. Don’t rinse it with cold water or it will become harder to do the peeling. When you are done, add few tablespoons of salt, and boil it for another 1-2 hours. Depends on the size, last time we bought a $20 tongue, boil it for 2 hours, and it still isn’t tender enough.
Is beef tongue nutritious? It contains iron, zinc, choline, vitamin B-12, and protein which are essential to our health. On the other hand, the disadvantage is that it’s high in cholesterol and saturated fat.
Leave a Comment