Beef Tongue Pastrami (first attempt)


 
R

Ron Strilaeff

New member
Inspired by Chef Matthew Lang's technique here http://www.heritagefoodsusa.com/chefs/beef_chef_2.html (and the fact that I'm the proud new owner of an 18.5 WSM), my wife and I decided to give it a try. She did all the brineing and rubbing.

Right NOW it is in the smoker with applewood and a full pan of water and I'm doing my best to do a cold smoke. 2.5 hours so far and I have the temp stabilized at 200-220. It was a bit high at first ... 280! (so I closed the vents to 10% but then it got down to 170 temp, so I opened the bottom vents to 1/4 and the top to 3/4.

update: just checked and the temp dropped back to 180 so I opened all vents 100% to get the coals going again.
 
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Do you have to peel the tongue before you cure it? I can kinda see the skin getting into the way of the cure penetrating the meat.
 
We didn't pre-skin it but should have since the skin is inedible in my opinion. But the only way I know to get if of is to boil first and then it will peel off. But I think boiling will also alter the curing and smoking process. After it was done, we sliced it really thin and then cutoff the edges. We also were able to peel it with a vegetable peeler, like you would a cucumber. I'm sure there is a better way to do this. The flavor was good (kinda like bologna) , but the front half of the tongue was pretty tough even after peeling. We ate the best parts thinly sliced but my wife ended up finely dicing the rest into a chicken salad type dish with mayo and celery and other stuff. Not exactly a glowing endorsement eh? But I would do it again after a bit more research on how to do the pre-peeling.
 
When I braised mine for about four hours I was able to pull the whole skin off in pretty much one piece. It has released from the tongue all the way around. The one thing I wish though was that mine would have actually been a bit tougher than it was. Certain pieces came off really soft, border-lining mushy, even after a real good hit on a hot grill.

And yeah, the skin is inedible leather that needs to be trashed. I couldn't imagine doing anything with that stuff. BTW, I saw a video on peeling a tongue before you braise it and the technique is similar to what you would do with removing a fish's skin or silver-skin from a tenderloin. Just make a small slit and let the knife slide underneath the membrane with the blade angled up just a bit and you won't take off much meat at all. That would probably help the cure penetrate a whole lot faster, or at least I think it would.

I take it since the skin wasn't removed that you lost all the peppercorns and spices you rubbed it with before smoking huh? That's another big reason I wanna figure out the proper way to do it too. That to me is what makes pastrami so great looking and tasting.
 
Instead of writing the whole thing over again, take a look at the thread I linked to a couple of posts up. I skinned the tounge, as I did not want to cook it before smoking.

I do not think the skin affects the curing process much.
 
Not sure I understand what the gelatin component was. Is it just rendered from a basic beef stock after it cools? Or is it gelatin that comes in the packets? Was that to shape it into a more uniform log BTW for even cooking?
 
Sure. I added some galatine to glue the tip of the tounge together, as it was pretty thin compared to the rest. It worked like a charm, but when it came to taste, it was not so good as the more marbled parts of the tounge. It had a nice taste, but not so juicy.
 
I have no idea. I'm aware of the fact that there are different qualities of gelatine available for the food industry, some of the gelatines become stiffer than others, called bloom, if I remember correctly, but as a amateur I have never tried anything else than the one or two brands you can find in supermarkets. I smoke this once a year, and pretty much forgets if one brand is better than the other. That's a sign that the difference is small. :)
I don't think it does much difference, gelatine is basically 90% proteines from animals such as pigs and cows, the rest is water. I use powdered gelatine, sprinkle it on dry, and hope for the best. So far it has worked OK.

Then Knox gelatine is not available here in Norway.
 
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