Parts & Labor: Corned Beef Tongue pt 1

My last couple of posts were kind of wordy, so I'm gonna let the pictures do most of the talking on this one. Corned (or brined or pickled) Beef is beef, most often brisket, that has been brined and then is boiled before serving. Beef tongue makes a great substitute for brisket because boiling is the best way to cook tongue. I used the Lobel's Meat Bible recipe for Corned Beef, but replaced the brisket with tongue.*

I like to get all my ingredients ready before I start cooking.


The celery and onion are just for decoration, they don't get added until we boil the corned tongue.


Here is our tongue. I forgot to take a picture before I put it in the brine. This one has been bringing for about a day, but I pulled it out to take a look. The texture and color are already beginning to change from the brining. Tongues can be a bit hard to brine all the way through, so I used a brine injector to shoot it full of brine before I put it into the brining bucket.


Here is the tongue, back in the brining bucket. As you can see, not all of the tongue is submerged in the brine, so...


I put a plate on top to weigh it down and make sure the entire tongue stays submerged in the brine. Throw some plastic wrap on the top, stick it in the fridge and forget about it for a couple of days. After 3 days, move the tongue so that the part that has been at the bottom of the bucket is on the top. Put it back in the fridge and forget about it for a few more days.

My tongue will be done brining next week. Check back then for the final steps and to see how I serve it. (Here's a hint: I also have a batch of sauerkraut on the way.)

* Both out of fear of legal consequences and respect for the authors and publishers of books, I'm not going to reproduce recipes on the blog.