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Tacos de Lengua – Beef Tongue Tacos

05.05.2022 by Jordan // Leave a Comment

sous vide tacos de lengua beef tongue tacos

We love whole animal butchery. It is delicious (most of the time, I’ll admit that I’m not a fan of straight liver, but I enjoy pâtés), it is economical, and it respects the whole animal. One of the biggest hurdles I’ve found to enjoying whole animal butchery is knowing what to do with all the different cuts, especially uncommon cuts like beef tongue.

I’m always fascinated when I watch our cows eat – they don’t have upper teeth, like a horse that can bite the grass down to the ground, so they extend their tongue, wrap it around the grass they want to eat, and then tear it back with their neck and pull in that bunch of up cycled sunshine and chew, and chew, and ruminate, and then chew some more. The tongue is long, covered in a thick, course membrane for grabbing and holding on to that grass without getting a raw, grass-cut tongue, and I’m pretty sure it is the second most used muscle after the heart (can’t find data on that though, so feel free to hit me with the fact checks). It is unlike any other part of the cow and doesn’t offer an intuitive solution to cooking it.

This is one of the many reasons that here at the farm: we love learning how different cultures use ingredients, especially ones that we don’t regularly encounter like beef tongue.

I flew to Las Vegas this weekend to celebrate my late sister’s birthday with my brother Ian. Moira would have been 32 this week – she died 3 years ago from a brain tumor. We all enjoyed cooking and trying new things, and Ian wanted to try cooking beef tongue, and using his new sous-vide for the first time. I did not pack beef tongue in my carry on – I’m pretty sure that would be an epic TSA story – so we visited one of the local Mexican meat markets and picked up some habñero pickled red onions and even spicier guacamole. Ha, I’ve been in Ohio away from proper spice levels for too long.

Because the tongue is such a strong, well used muscle, it needs a lot of cooking time to soften up. We rubbed a little oil on the tongue, added salt and pepper, and an onion, tomato, and cilantro to our vacuum seal bag, and set the sous-vide to 170 degrees. If you don’t have a sous-vide, you can use the more traditional manner of a long braise at low heat on the stove, but it was really nice to set the sous-vide and leave it for a day knowing it would be consistent throughout.

After 26 hours, we pulled the tongue, drained the juices from the bag, set the tongue in an ice bath to shock it and make removing the membrane easier. Once the membrane was removed, we diced the tongue into roughly half inch chunks. When you do this you’ll see how different the muscle structure of the tongue is than a steak or roast cut you’re more used to seeing. We kept the seasoning pretty simple and blended 4 chipotles in adobo sauce, an extra spoonful of the adobo sauce, a splash of lime juice, and a pinch of salt with half of the juices from the sous-vide bag. We put the rest of the juices in a cast iron skillet and sautéed some onion and added the beef tongue chunks and cooked them until they crisped up a little. You can add some of the chipotle sauce to the pan while doing this final cooking, or you can just drizzle it on the tacos.

Add your favorite toppings to your heated tortillas – we had the chipotle sauce, green onions, cilantro, guacamole, habañero pickled red onions, and cotijo cheese. Glorious! (We used street sized flour tortillas, but if you use corn you’ll probably want to use two tortillas per taco because the meat is wet, plus the sauce, and corn doesn’t hold that as well).

sous vide tacos de lengua beef tongue tacos
Print Recipe

Beef Tongue Tacos – Tacos de Lengua

Flavorful meat to elevate your next taco night
Prep Time45 mins
Cook Time1 d
15 mins
Total Time1 d 1 hr
Servings: 8

Equipment

  • Sous Vide Set it and forget it option
  • Dutch Oven Traditional method, which will require adding water or broth to submerge tongue, and more care in maintaining temperature.

Ingredients

  • 1 Beef Tongue Tongues vary in weight, but roughly 1.5-3 pounds
  • 2 tbsp Canola or Vegetable Oil Use more or less, depending on size of tongue
  • salt
  • pepper
  • 1 Onion cut into 2-4 chunks
  • 1 Tomato cut into 2-4 chunks
  • Cilantro 6-8 stems
  • 4 Chipotles in Adobo sauce use an extra spoon of the sauce
  • Lime Juice from one lime, or a splash to taste
  • 1/2 Diced Onion
  • All your favorite taco toppings

Instructions

  • Preheat sous-vide to 170. Or, if using dutch oven, preheat water or broth sufficient to cover tongue to roughly 170.
  • Rinse tongue, pat dry, rub with oil, salt, and pepper.
  • Add tongue, onion chunks, tomato chunks, and cilantro to vacuum bag. If using dutch oven method, add all directly to broth.
  • Submerge tongue and cook for 24 hours.
  • Remove tongue and reserve juices from the bag.
  • Set drained bag in an ice bath for 15 minutes.
  • Remove the membrane from the tongue.
  • Dice tongue into 1/2 inch chunks.
  • Add chipotle peppers and lime to half reserved liquid, blend, and add salt to taste.
  • Sauté diced onions in remaining liquid and add tongue. Cook down until the meat begins to crisp up. Feel free to add some of the chipotle sauce to this final cooking, or just add to tacos as you are making them.
  • Toast your tortillas.
  • Add your favorite taco toppings and fiesta!

Categories // Blog Post

belvederefarms

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#hayingseason #freshhay #hay #farmlife #summeronthefarm #hayfield #ohiofarm
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Harvested rhubarb from the garden and a couple hours later : strawberry rhubarb jam.
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When you’re filling shelves for the winter, every little bit counts.
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Are you making jam this year? What’s your favorite fruit to use for jam? I loooove apricot jam, but have a hard time finding local apricots here in Ohio. If you know of a source - spill the beans!🤣
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Eleven brand spankin’ new piglets born on the fa Eleven brand spankin’ new piglets born on the farm yesterday afternoon/evening.
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I’m here for it and doing my darndest.
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Morning milking is a balm to the soul. . I used to Morning milking is a balm to the soul.
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I used to be a die hard night owl and use the quiet of a dark house late at night to get all the things done. I’d put the kids to bed and start a whole ‘nother shift of work into the wee hours.
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Having a milk cow changed all that. 
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Now I can hardly get the kids to bed soon enough so I can crawl between the sheets myself. Sometimes I even curse the chickens who won’t go to bed until dark (and we can’t go to bed until they’re shut up).
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And I’m up before the sun, relishing the quiet of a dark house, and soaking up those first golden rays of light as I call in the cows for milking.
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It’s ideal growing weather - you can almost hear the grass growing.
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One thing I love so much about farm life is the connection to the earth- her patterns and her subtle changes week to week over the season.
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#thisisfarming #ohiofarm #iamyourfarmer #farmlife #grassfedbeef #grassfed #regenerativeagriculture
You want to make real honest-to-goodness cheese at You want to make real honest-to-goodness cheese at home. Make the most use of that liquid gold you’ve got coming in by the pailful. Fill your family’s bellies with nutrient-dense protein-packed cheeses grown right in your backyard, stirred by your own hands, aged in your own home.
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But cheese? That sounds/feels/looks so intimidating, am I right?
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Here I am, standing on my box, to tell you that it does. not. have. to be that way. Our great-grands didn’t have sterile kitchens. Or commercial supplies. Or a degree in biochemical engineering. But they made cheese. And fed families. And thrived.
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My friend Kate’s ( @venisonfordinner ) new course “Cheesemaking Without the BS” will get you where you want to be in your Cheesemaking journey. She’s got a houseful of kids, a homestead to run, and cows to milk. Making cheese is just one of the things because she’s learned how to make it work, without overwhelm, and she’ll teach you to do the same.
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In fact, despite the VERY many fancy Cheesemaking books and guides and articles I’d read over many years, it was following Kate’s methods that gave me the confidence to finally make things like Asiago, Gouda, and Butterkaeser.
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Now’s the time. This weekend is a special sale ($57!) and for the next month she’s got a hand-holding mentorship option to walk you through step by step. Once you purchase, the course material is available to you always.
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Other than rennet and cheese culture, this is hands-down the best investment you’ll make in yourself on your Cheesemaking journey.
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Go forth, friends. Learn. Make. Eat. Thrive.
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“It isn’t the great big pleasures that count t “It isn’t the great big pleasures that count the most; it’s making a great deal out of the little ones.”

- Jean Webster (American author)
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Speaking of which: can you find the baby? Comment with a 👍 when you do!
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That milk pail foam tho 🤩🤩🤩. . Those firs That milk pail foam tho 🤩🤩🤩.
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Those first few weeks hand milking can be disheartening. Dribbles and squirts, milk running down your wrist, sticky fingers, and sore forearms. 
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Milking is a skill. No one is good at it right away. It takes practice. The more you practice, the better you get. The faster you get, the more sure and even your squirts.
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And then one day, there will be foam in the bucket and you’ll know you’ve arrived. Your squirts are fast and firm and sure and the sustained pressure of all that milk hitting the pail makes the most gloriously frothy foam.
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Keep at it friend. Whatever skill you’re working on now. Just because you’re not that great at it right now doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing or that you won’t get better.
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Keep working. Keep trying. Keep learning. The foam will come.
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#farmlife #milkmaid #modernmilkmaid #milkmaidlife #milkcowlife #handmilking #rawmilk #homesteadskills #traditionalskills
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