Gimme tongue

My friend Juliet once told me that she would encourage her kids to read this blog if it were not for the profanity. Huh? What profanity? I don’t employ foul language as much as the average HBO series does, and that’s on basic cable. Besides, there’s a lot more to the WWW than profanity and Lourd de Veyra. It irks me how people half my years (and those half theirs) know more porn sites than I do.

Fuck it. There — there’s profanity for you. No context whatsoever, purely gratuitous. You know what else is gratuitous? Olives. That’s if you ask my father. He believes there is no place for olives in any dish. I do not exactly agree. More so that guy I once sat next to at Tinderbox who ate two bowls of the stuff in one sitting.

I have nothing against olives. On the other hand, I do not go out of my way for them. Doing so would imply an affinity I would rather reserve for fried banana. You want to get in my father’s good graces, for each time a recipe calls for olives, use banana instead. It won’t guarantee that he’ll eat lengua, tongue not being something he’s keen on, but it improves the chances.

I love the lengua at Vienna Kaffeehaus, although it has neither olives nor banana. What it does have is this cheesy sauce that sets it apart from the ox tongue served at other dining establishments. I have yet to convince my Cebuano friends that it is the best in the city. I could be wrong, of course, what with my limited exposure to the city’s restaurant scene, but Vienna’s version certainly qualifies as different.

Not that different; it’s not like they reinvented the dish. Or the Hungarian sausage, with which my pals remain steadfastly enamored. Before I dared to try Vienna’s lengua, that was just about the only item I ordered there. But I have since moved on — and not necessarily to another restaurant’s sausage. Like BB King says, the thrill is gone. With ox tongue, it’s only just begun.

Before we go on, let us acknowledge the elephant in the room: the tongue itself. Raw, it is not a beautiful (or appetizing) sight. Some folks can’t seem to get over that (and yet eat sisig, but let us not go there). For another, it’s expensive — almost thrice the price of regular beef! But that’s at Rustan’s (₱681 a kilo). My butcher practically gives his away at ₱200 (let’s hope he doesn’t read this).

And then you have to cook it to the point where it actually becomes edible, i.e., tender enough, which on a stove-top (or slow cooker) takes from five to six hours. Even I balked at that one, so I used a pressure cooker instead (if you have one, this is what that thing’s for). Unsure of just how long it takes to pressure-cook tongue, I did a quick research. The consensus put it at 50 minutes, but since I did not want my tongue too tender (a beef I have with Café Laguna’s lengua), I settled for 35. That was just about right, and the “skin” peeled off without much effort (do this while the tongue is still hot; you will have a hard time doing so otherwise — or so they say (I did not feel up to the challenge of verifying such claim for the amount I paid (obviously I found out too late about my butcher’s price))).

One more thing. Being a muscle, tongue may appear lean, but it contains a lot of fat. A three-ounce serving contains something like 240 calories, most of that derived from fat. Tongue is also packed with cholesterol. On the other hand, it is rich in protein and has no carbohydrates. Now there’s food for thought.

If none of what I have just mentioned fazes you, congratulations. You are in for a treat. For starters, consider the broth. You are not likely to make this intense and flavorful a stock with just beef bones. And there’s a lot of it, too, which is another reason I like to use a pressure cooker (less liquid loss). Already I’m contemplating using the extra broth for pho, but only if I find some cilantro, so don’t hold your breath.

As for the main event, ’twas a good thing I decided to check out this photo I once took of Vienna’s dish:

So fixated was I on the cheese component of the sauce, I completely forgot about the mushrooms. If it had not been for the documentary evidence, I would have insisted that Vienna’s lengua had none at all! (Oh treacherous memory!) How does mine look in comparison, BTW? Granted, my sauce is heavier, but they’ve had years to perfect theirs. If I have a complaint, it’s that they smother the meat with it, as if trying to conceal something. Maybe they think I need to be spared the sight of naked tongue? I’ve seen nastier on the Web, you know, none of them near as tasty (but then they weren’t meant to be, ha-ha).

Were you expecting a recipe? Sorry. This is a work in progress. Maybe I’ll eventually nail it; maybe I won’t. All I can tell you is that I still have extra tongue and I’m going to finish it one way or another. And soon, what with Holy Week creeping up on us. Not that I believe in fasting, but my arteries sure could use a break.