Twice-Cooked Ox Tongue

If we all ate more offal, fewer animals would need to die for our dinners. More importantly, fewer animals would need to live for our dinners, because when it comes to climate change, it's the living part that's the problem. It's all that farting, shitting and burping that cattle do while they're being industrially chubbed-up for our tables.

A 2019 German study estimated that we could reduce emissions from meat production by 14% if we were a little less squeamish about which bits we were prepared to eat. Offal is also densely packed with nutrients, which means we need less of it compared to muscle meat.

So stop with that theatrical squirming and give offal a go - or prepare to be engulfed in fart-fuelled apocalyptic flames.

Unlike most environmentally conscious behaviours, eating offal does not require you to sacrifice comfort or happiness, unless you cook it horribly of course. I promise you, Twice-Cooked Ox Tongue will be a revelation. It's crispy on the outside and melty, meaty and mellow in the middle. You can put a wedge in a sandwich, serve it on a bed of lentils or just eat a slab straight out of the pan with a sprinkle of salt and a squeeze of lemon.

Twice-Cooked Ox Tongue

~ serves 6 ~

Ingredients

1 ox tongue - about 1kg

1 litre beef stock

1 onion, finely sliced

4 large garlic cloves, squashed under the flat of a knife

2 tbsp salt

1 tbsp black peppercorns, roughly smashed

1 tsp whole cloves

1 tsp fennel seeds, roughly smashed

2 bay leaves

Method

First, chase your children around the house with the raw tongue waggling it and laughing maniacally.

Rinse the tongue under cold water, then let it soak in a pot of cold water for 30 minutes.

Add the tongue and the all the other ingredients to a large pan. The liquid will only cover the tongue halfway, so you're going to top it up with cold water, until the water's deep enough to cover the tongue.

If you're working with a slow cooker, set it to low and cook for 7-8 hours.

If you're cooking it in a pan, bring the liquid to the boil, then turn it down to a simmer and let it cook for 4 hours.

The tongue will float, so halfway through the cooking time you'll need to turn it over to give the bit that's floating above the liquid a chance to cook. This is also a good time to taste the liquid. It should be a bit saltier than you'd want a soup to be. If it's not, fix it.

At the end of the cooking time, turn off the heat and let the tongue cool a little in the broth. When it's cool enough to handle, lift it out of the liquid and peel off the skin. This is easier when the tongue's still a little warm.

Now, you can either return the tongue to the liquid and let it all cool overnight in the fridge, or you're feeling a little cheffy, you can press it.

Pressing is not essential, but it does create a more uniform shape, and a denser texture. You just curl that sexy slab of moist muscle up into a cake tin or lay it out in a terrine dish and squash it down with a plate and a weight of some sort. I use books or tinned beans. Leave the weighed-down tongue in the fridge overnight.

The image at the top of this recipe is of a pressed tongue. The triptych below shows an unpressed tongue. Although not as pretty, it was just as just as delicious as its posher, pressed counterpart.

Either way, after a night cooling in the fridge, you can wrap it in cling wrap for later, or slice off a steak-like slab and sauté it in butter.

Just let it brown on a medium heat for 5 minutes on each side and serve. I usually cook up a couple of slices, eating one straight out of the pan as an amuse-bouche and stuffing the other in a bun with a little mayo, tomato, red onion, pickle and some fresh herbs.

Enjoy. And try not to think of it as French-kissing a dead cow.

Sorry.