Good Food For Your Buds

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You Just Can�t Lick This Meal

--Or�

French Kissing DaSteer

For those that can imagine making and/or eating corned beef�tongue is like a doubleplusgood extra tender version of same. Much lower in fat, and higher in yum�this meal just can�t be licked.

Most good butcher shops still stock tongue even if innard meats have fallen into lower usage in some regions. Other alternative locales for hunting the warm, wet, pink goodness? A nice Jewish deli (you are allowed to enter and purchase things even if you are a little bit goy.) Most stupor markets can get it for you even if they don�t normally stock some folk�s favorite muscle.

What you are looking for is pickled tongue (otherwise, you need to own a pressure cooker or corn it yourself.) This product could be labeled corned, pickled, salted, or (in areas now and formerly Brit) scarlet tongue.

My best suggestion? Go to a joint that does Hebrew National lunchmeats and get one of theirs. It is more expensive, but it is prepeeled and Hebrew Nat has one of the finest quality control mechanisms on the planet and you can be sure that you won�t have to soak your tongue overnight to get the extra salt out.

If you buy a pickled/corned tongue in a market (and you see pickling spices like you would in a nice container of Kosher dills or a corned beast,) you would be wisest to soak it overnight (like in a sizeable pot or casserole dish in the fridgedair,) changing the water in the morning, and par-boiling it once and draining before fully cooking.

All that said?

A large Kosher tongue should serve six to eight, and smaller ones would take care of four diners�so get two or three if necessary.

Part of the fun with this meal is chasing folks around your household with it, making either deeply juvenile comments or overtly sexual ones (depending upon the audience.) You can probably tell which human should get which. Do NOT offer to lick a family member�s pudendum as that would just be deeply wrong�and granny probably would feel put out and confused if you offered her a lengthy tongue bath. Keep your gags in the proper contextual region and all will be swell.

After some fun has ensued, drop the tongue into a large pot. Add some garlic cloves, a bay leaf or two (lightly bruised) and as many peppercorns as sound yummy to you. Lid and boil for 2.5 to 3.5 hours. [Exception here is the Hebrew Nat variety as that is fully cooked. Just boil it for an hour to get it really hot and tongue-ticklingly-tantalizing.] You�ll know it is done when you can sink a fork or a skewer into it and get little tension�it should feel tender to the touch or the piercing.

Take your meat off the burner and let it hang out in the pot for the time it takes to make the sauce (Hey! Make DaSauce! A new gameshow on Playboy TeeVee! Starring me! Bevy�s O� Lovelies� and an annoying, er, face-plant. Sorry.)

What follows is something yummy for pouring atop the cooked tongue and then onto your fresh and still-living version:

Some SauceLike Ingredients:

Butter�Half A Stick or 2 ounces.

White Baking Flour�Three or Four tablespoons.

Milk/MooJuice�Half a cup

Heavy Cream�A Quarter Cup

Capers�A Quarter Cup, More To Taste.

Some of the juice from the capers

Shallots�Three or Four�chopped and nuked til semi-clear.

Do note, that if you are not a caper fan you can change them out for various fungi (wild, American or whatever.) Or if you love mushrooms add a bunch of presaut�ed pals to the mix.

1. In a smallish saucepan, melt the butter. If you are a dame, I�ve met a few of you that can do such with your eyes� the rest of us have to use a burner. Now, should you wish, get all Naw-lins and brown the butterwith a bit of Olive Oil to keep it from burning like a sumbitch. On completion make a roux or brown-sauce with your flour by browning that as well. This is done with low to moderate heat cuz you can burn it too. A roux is nice because it basically keeps you from ever making a lumpy sauce (with little flour dumplings.) Think of the butter/oil combo as the lubricant that keeps the flour molecules from sticking, and you can make it as brown as your own tongue and taste buddies enjoy (remember this for gravy as well.)

2. After the flour has foamed (or browned to your satisfaction) take it off the burner for a bit, and as it cools somewhat start adding the MooJuice slowly, mixing it in well, and adding more

3. When you have a luscious and creamy mo-fo of a sauce, let it brew n� simmer a bit�very gently�for about five minutes. Then add in your various other ingredients on the fly. All but the additional cream can be slamdunked into the mix�no need to be frilly about your dealings with a sauce (or this Sauce for that matter.) Just dump the Capers with some juice, your nuked shallot-bits, your saut�ed mushrooms (if you decided to throw some in. And so on. Then stir in the Heavy Cream as a finish.

4. Now season to taste. Your taste. Not mine. Suggestions include a bit of Kosher Salt, some black pepper or white pepper, some cayenne pepper, some fresh chopped herbs�like maybe some dill. Whatever. Keep it warm to hot.

If you trusted me on the Hebrew Nat Tongue, you can skip the next step. If you had to get a corned tongue� Just yank the big ol� piece of meat out of the pan, put it on your clean counter or cutting surface or whatever, and while still hot (I promise, it is testy on the hands but much easier) take a paring knife and run it down the outer skin (taste buds, et al) slicing shallowly. Peel the skin with your paws. This can be a bit of an ouch, but you�ll thank me as it comes off a lot more manageably this-a-way. Lastly, if your tongue had bones underneath, you can now slid them out.

Now, all versions of tongue rejoin the triumphant completion of this delectable dish. Slice it fairly thickly in the �� to �� region, and a nice way to serve it up is to do a round robin on a platter with the slices (after having warmed said platter in a 170 oven just long enough so it doesn�t make your food cold.) This means, lay out the slices one by one around and around toward the center with some overlap. Then sprinkle with some not warmed capers out of the jar you bought, and pour the hot sauce over the remainder leaving some bits of pink flesh uncovered to tease and tantalize your table with�.

Dat�s it.

No major effort and a wonderful, tender, some might even call it elegant dish.

Serve with whatever makes you happy. Gnochi, Mashed Potatoes, Oven Browned Taters, Couscous� and a wonderful not-over-cooked green veg.

--Who�sYerTasteBud?SauceIsWho�sYourPal?IamAren'tI?