Beef Tongue Banh Mi
Difficulty: Medium
Cooking time: 2 Hours prep + 30 minutes cooking
Serves 4
Banh mi is a delicious staple food in Vietnam, and it’s surfaced in our local area of SoCal for its simplicity and vast customization. It’s a dish that can be made with essentially whatever you have around the house, and it can be on the table in most cases, in under an hour. Barbecued thinly sliced pork chops, grilled marinated chicken, or braised meat all work well enough, but as I’ve found out recently, grilled beef goes surprisingly well with all the fresh flavors. The only complaint I’ve had is that straight-up grilled meat isn’t always tender as I’d like it, even sliced up and adds a bit too much chewing to my whole sandwich experience.
Enter the beef tongue, a flavorful, tender, and super underrated cut of meat. It’s been used to great effect in taco trucks as lengua and after a long slow cook, creates a juicy, impossibly tender joint of meat. Today, for simplicity we’re going to be boiling it in an assortment of herbs to cook it through, making an amazing beef stock in the process, and then grilling to bring out the best of its flavors. This is by no means fully authentic or traditional, but we’ll be using more traditional banh mi accouterment and using some very good baguettes, a recipe for which comes from our very own at Itadakimasu.
The Recipe:
Ingredients:
Beef tongue:
1 2 ½ - 3 ½ lb Beef tongue whole, skin on
1 Medium onion, cut into quarters
1 Whole head of garlic, chopped in half horizontally
2 Tbsp black peppercorns
2 Tbsp whole cumin seed
1 Bunch fresh cilantro
Banh Mi:
2 High-quality large sandwich baguettes, such as the one listed here: https://www.itadakimasu.me/home/homemade-baguettes
1 Large, fresh cucumber
1 Cup rice vinegar
1 Large or 2 medium carrots
1 Bunch fresh cilantro, or 1 bunch fresh mint
1 Small white onion
2 Medium Jalapenos
1 Tsp sugar
3 Fresh limes
1 Clove minced garlic
1 Can of ethically sourced pate or substitutes such as pork liver or chicken pate
The Process:
Precooking the Tongue:
Take your beef tongue and place into a large pot large enough to hold it without touching the sides, and fill with cold water until about ½ - 1 inch covers it
Note: This recipe is great for weeknight meals too. You can boil multiple tongues at once, and I normally do 2. I freeze one for another night for an easy defrost and quick meal, and this step can be done a couple of days in advance as long as the cooked tongues are kept clean.
Slice your onions and garlic and put into the cold water along with the rest of the aromatics, rinsing off the cilantro of any dead leaves or dirt before putting in whole
Over high heat, bring to a rolling boil and watch the surface of the water. Once hot, lower down to medium heat and for the first 20 minutes, skim off any floating scum with a ladle or a shallow sieve.
Allow it to boil for 2 hours, topping off with a bit of water to maintain about an inch of clearance.
It’s also a good time to get your other sandwich toppings ready in the next step, while you’re waiting.
Intermittently poke with a paring knife every half hour to see if it has tenderized. Tongues can differ somewhat so they may need different degrees of time for the skin to separate
This is also a good time to preheat a charcoal or gas grill if you’re eating this same day since preheating can take a bit.
Once complete, lift out of the water carefully (I burned myself a few times like this) with tongs or a sieve, but the remaining liquid is some high-quality beef stock, which can be concentrated further or otherwise saved for another day.
If you’re feeling adventurous, you can even make an au jus out of it, doing something like a french dip with this sandwich but I’ll probably skip it today
Allow to cool off and by now the skin should mostly peel away. Use a sharp knife to lift and gently slice away the tough outer skin, but try to keep most of the meat on and most of the tongue intact.
Toppings:
Peel and cut your carrots into long chunks, before slicing lengthwise and crosswise to julienne your carrots into thin matchsticks
Slice your onions in half root-lengthwise and slice thinly into slivers, and cut your jalapenos into thin slices as well
Pour out your rice vinegar, minced garlic, and sugar into a bowl and stir to dissolve. Divide into two bowls and add your jalapenos into one bowl and your carrots into another, packing down if needed to fit it all and topping off with more rice vinegar if needed
Wash your herbs and otherwise set all toppings onto a plate. Set aside in the fridge until ready
Roasting and Assembling:
If not done already, preheat a charcoal grill to white-hot coals or a gas grill to about 400 and rub your tongue down with oil and a generous sprinkling of salt on all sides
Place onto the grill, uncovered, and allow to sear on all sides to a well-browned, nearly crispy, complexion, maybe 4 minutes per side depending on the heat of your grill
I love charred, essentially burnt meat but for health and conventional flavor reasons, can’t recommend it to people for most dishes. I still can’t for this one, but I will say, however, that it can afford to be a bit on the darker side since only the outside will be charred, and even if you completely scorch the outside (which is how my family likes it) the inside will be essentially untouched.
Once complete, slice your beef into thin medallions and sprinkle very lightly with salt
Optionally toast your baguettes while this is going on, some people like it soft and some people like it a bit crunchy. I used to like cutting my mouth open on bread shards, so I always toasted, but as I’ve found recently, a good quality baguette will be crispy but not painfully so but as usual, do to your preferences.
Either way, cut your large baguettes in half right in the middle (or into thirds if you have REALLY big baguettes), then cutting those down the length of the baguette horizontally to create sandwich halves. You should have about 4-6 sandwiches ready to make
It’s good to have about 6-8 in (15-20 cm) sandwiches so you can even just use smaller or medium-sized baguettes without cutting.
Assemble at the table or beforehand, spreading a healthy smear of pate, laying down a bed of cucumbers and herb, plenty of meat, carrots, a couple of jalapenos, and a big squeeze of lime
