How and for how long should you cook beef tongue correctly in a saucepan and slow cooker so that it turns out tasty and soft? Boiled beef tongue ─ cooking recipe: how and how much to cook

In order for the tongue to be tasty and become a real delicacy on your table, you first need to learn how to cook the tongue correctly. Unfortunately, not every housewife knows how to properly cook beef or pork tongue and make a first-class treat from an ordinary offal. How to properly cook tongue so that it retains vitamins, minerals and microelements, and the meat melts in your mouth, is juicy, aromatic and has a unique taste!

But it’s never too late to learn, and we will be happy to tell you how to cook tongue correctly. There is nothing complicated about it!

How to cook tongue

Before preparing various dishes from the tongue, it should be boiled, so the process of initial processing of the tongue is very important for the future taste of the dishes. Here are some tips on how to cook tongue:

First, rinse your tongue well under running water and remove excess fat.
Soak your tongue for half an hour to make it more tender and soft.
Then put it in a deep saucepan and fill it with water. Place on medium heat. No need to add salt. Bring to a boil, be sure to remove the foam with a slotted spoon and reduce the heat.
Cook your tongue in two waters, what does this mean? First, cook the tongue for 15 minutes, then drain the broth, rinse the tongue thoroughly, pour new water into a clean pan and cook the tongue again until tender. This allows you to remove harmful substances and unpleasant odors when cooking broth. Don't forget to remove the foam with a slotted spoon.
Do not let it boil too much, just let the water bubble a little.
Boil the tongue in water without salt - it is better to salt the tongue ready-made.
How to determine how long to cook beef or pork tongue?

Pork tongue is cooked for 1.5–3 hours, and beef tongue for 2–3 hours, it all depends on the size of the product.

An hour before the end of cooking, add peeled whole carrots, onions, bay leaves and peppercorns to the broth. Or add your favorite spices.

You can also make a mixture of 1 tsp. parsley, 2 bay leaves and 1 tsp. dry dill. This set of herbs will help make your tongue taste piquant.

After you add the vegetables, cook the tongue for another 1 hour.

If you want to salt your tongue, do it half an hour before the end of cooking.

Check tongue readiness you can do this. Poke your tongue with a fork; if it pierces easily, it’s ready. If it's tough, cook until done.

In general, cooking time depends on the age and weight of the tongue.

Language need to be cleaned immediately after cooking. Don't keep it in the broth for long. Keep the finished tongue under cold water for a few minutes and easily remove the skin with a knife. If your tongue doesn’t clean well, it means it’s not ready yet.

Store cleaned tongue in a saucepan with a lid so it doesn't dry out. Possibly in broth.

Slice the tongue and serve. If desired, you can prepare a side dish. Many people prepare delicious salads from the tongue. Try it too!

For example, my mother always cooked tongue without salt. She explained this to me by saying that otherwise it would be impossible to remove the membrane from the finished tongue.
I cooked this way for many years until I saw a recipe in a serious cookbook. It turned out that salt has nothing to do with removing the shell - the shell can be easily removed from a tongue boiled with salt!

So it turned out that this simple matter has many nuances and there is material for thought!

So, you went to the market or store and want to buy a language.

Which one to choose: beef, veal, pork or lamb, fresh or frozen?

When choosing a language, you need to remember: the tongue belongs to the category of internal organs, i.e. to offal, therefore, like other offal (for example, kidneys) it has a specific taste and smell, which depend on the age of the animal: the younger the animal, the less pronounced the smell and taste will be. This especially applies to beef.
If you like a mild taste, look for veal tongues, focusing not on the words of the seller, but on the size and weight. The weight of veal tongue usually does not exceed 1 kg - 1 kg 200 g. In any case, the smaller the tongue, the tastier and more tender it will be.

Spots on the coat of the tongue have no effect on the taste of the tongue and are associated with the breed of livestock and nothing else.

Whether the tongue is fresh or frozen doesn't really matter, the main thing is that the tongue is frozen only once and not multiple times. Thaw the tongue in the refrigerator, slowly, so it does not lose much liquid during defrosting.

See how ready the tongue is for cooking.

This means that everything unnecessary has been cut off from it: muscles adjacent to the root of the tongue, cartilage and small bones, salivary glands, lateral parts of the membrane in which there is no meat, external fat.

If the tongue is not processed and cleaned (most often it is sold this way on the market), do all this work yourself.

Rinse your tongue thoroughly under running water and now decide what you will do with it.

Actually, you have two options - boil the tongue immediately or pre-soak it in salt and (if desired) in spices.

Which option should I choose? I always prefer not to season my tongue with spices and garlic because I love the clean taste of it.

However, your choice may be different, and you will want to salt your tongue.

Boiling the tongue without first salting it.

1. Place the tongue in a saucepan, add water so that it completely covers the tongue and bring the water to a boil. Cook the tongue for 10 - 15 minutes.

Pour the water out of the pan, rinse the tongue with clean water, return it to the pan and pour boiling water over it so that the entire tongue is covered with water.
This simple operation will make it possible to use the broth later to prepare soup.

If you plan to discard the broth in any case, you don’t have to change the water. Conversely, if the smell of the broth in the first five minutes seems too strong and unpleasant to you, cook the tongue longer - 30 minutes, and then change the water.

2. Bring the water to a boil again. Add 2 tsp. salt (without a slide!), spices to taste. I usually add: 2 allspice (English) peppercorns, 5-6 black peppercorns, 1 tsp. grains Coriander is an aromatic plant of the Umbelliferae family. Young shoots of coriander are called cilantro. Dried leaves and seeds are used as spices. Coriander has been known as a spice for more than 3 thousand years and is considered one of the most common and versatile spices. The fruits of coriander (cilantro) look like small grains of light brown color, round or elongated in shape. Used whole or in ground form as a spice for flavoring and fortifying sausages, cheese, canned meat and fish, marinades, pickles and liqueurs....

3. Cook the tongue over very low heat until tender. Boiling time for veal tongue: 2-2.5 hours, beef tongue: 3-3.5 hours. If desired, you can add carrots and onions, as when cooking regular meat.

If you have a pressure cooker, you can boil the tongue in it. Cook for 30 minutes, then open the pressure cooker and check for doneness. If necessary, finish cooking the tongue.

The language has a heterogeneous structure.
At the root, the muscle has a large diameter, is relatively loose and is completely riddled with fat; the tip of the tongue has a small diameter, is not at all fatty and is more dense. That is why the readiness of the tongue is always checked by the tip.

Usually it is advised to pierce the tongue and focus on the ease of insertion of the blade. I don't recommend doing this. Cut off the tip of your tongue and chew - this way you will get the most objective information about the degree of readiness.

If you serve the tongue as a cold appetizer, take into account that the cooled tongue will become denser and tougher, so it should be cooked a little more than you currently think is normal.

If, on the contrary, you additionally simmer the tongue in the sauce, do not cook it until fully cooked. As soon as you see that the membrane at the thin end of the tongue has swollen and began to lag behind the meat, you can consider the tongue ready.

In any case, do not overcook the tongue, otherwise it will become loose and stringy.

4. Pour cold water over your tongue and remove the membrane. Start at the tip of your tongue, where it is thicker and easier to separate. At the root of the tongue, the membrane is thin and sometimes comes off with great difficulty - cut it off with a thin knife.

You can leave the tongue in the broth until completely cooled before removing the skin if you are serving it with sauce.

If you serve the tongue without sauce, I would advise removing the skin from the hot tongue. If you season a hot broth with spices or garlic, put a cleaned tongue in it and let it cool along with the broth, the tongue will absorb the aromas and taste of the seasonings.

5. Store the tongue in the broth until serving, or wrap the tongue tightly in cling film and store there.

6. Place the tongue in the refrigerator and let it cool completely. You can cut cold tongue into beautiful and thin slices.

Second option: boiling the tongue with preliminary salting.

If you kept your tongue in brine or dry salt for less than 5 days, then in principle you can cook it the same way as tongue without salting, just without adding salt to the water.

If you kept your tongue in salt or brine for more than 5 days, you will have to soak it first to remove excess salt, and only then boil it.

You can read about how and how long to soak your tongue in the article on salting the tongue.

How and with what to serve ready-boiled tongue.

1. Slices of tongue are fried in butter, sprinkled with coarse salt and served with gherkins.

2. Cold tongue slices served with horseradish or mustard.

3. Aspic is prepared from the tongue. For example, in the form of portioned snacks as in the recipe

4. The tongue can be served with a cold sauce, such as mushroom sauce.

5. There are many options for preparing tongue in hot sauce: mushroom, tomato, wine, etc.

There are many successful recipes for cooking beef tongue.

We will describe the best of them and draw your attention to those subtleties that are important when choosing and cooking this product.

Selection rules

So, those who prefer the market go to the market, and those who prefer supermarkets go there. But we go for the same thing - beef tongue. We need to choose this product correctly so that it is of high quality and fresh.

The first rule when purchasing meat products is to have a sanitary stamp on the product. The stamp confirms that the meat has been examined and no diseases have been detected in the animal. Let's look at the appearance:

The product should have a pink or slightly purple tint;
Must smell fresh and meaty. A different smell already leads to suspicion that the product is stale;
When pressed with your finger, the fresh tongue should be elastic, and the indentation should disappear. The softness of the product indicates repeated freezing;
When cutting the tongue, pay attention to the meat juice. It should be transparent. If there is blood on the offal, this indicates freshness. With an abundance of meat juice, you should know that this tongue is far from fresh.

A stale tongue will initially smell foul and have an olive tint. Of course, it is very easy to get poisoned by such an offal. Therefore, be careful when choosing meat products.

What you need to know about the beneficial properties of offal

And so we chose the language. Now let's find out why it is useful.

Due to the fact that it is almost completely absorbed, it is included in many diets, and people with diseases of the cardiovascular system need to eat it constantly; the tongue also prevents exacerbations of peptic ulcers. It is recommended even for children.

With constant consumption of beef tongue, people's immunity increases. And for patients with diabetes mellitus it is absolutely irreplaceable. The fact is that the product contains a high content of zinc, and with the help of zinc, insulin is produced, which is so necessary for the functioning of diabetics.

Let’s not delve into a science like chemistry, let’s just say one thing: beef tongue contains the entire periodic table useful for humans. The product contains all the proteins, acids and vitamins necessary for health and longevity.

Subtleties and secrets of cooking

According to the laws of logic, having learned about the benefits of this product, we begin to prepare it correctly. Having brought home from a retail outlet a purchased fresh and high-quality product, the first thing we do is put it in cold water and keep it like that for about an hour.

This is necessary so that it thaws and is easier to clean. Use a knife to remove mucus and blood and rinse well with running, cold water.

A little secret: when cooking beef tongue, you need to take a large pan, as it will greatly increase in size during cooking.

Each housewife will cook offal in different ways - some in a pressure cooker, some in a slow cooker, and some simply on a gas stove. Cooking time will naturally vary.

The fastest of these housewife assistants is, of course, a pressure cooker.

From the moment of boiling time, cooking will take only one hour.

In a slow cooker, this process will take about six hours.

Cooking the tongue will be the most troublesome task for those who have a gas stove.

But don't get discouraged and roll up your sleeves. The end result will be worth it.

We remind you: the pan should be at least twice the size of the tongue itself. So, here's how to properly cook beef tongue:

Stage one: cut the clean product in half. Place it in a container, fill it with cold water and place it on a lit stove;
After bringing the water to a boil, you need to remove the foam. Then cook the product over medium heat for approximately twenty minutes. After which we take out the tongue and rinse it well. Pour out the broth and wash the pan;
Place a clean pan of water on a hot stove and wait for it to boil. Then add salt, put the meat in it and reduce the heat to minimum;
We cook for at least three hours, and then the housewife needs to see for herself whether the process needs to be continued or not. After half an hour after boiling, add onion and 2-3 dry bay leaves into the broth. We check the readiness of the offal by piercing it with a sharp object. If the puncture is easy, the tongue is ready. Take it out and put it in cold water. After holding the offal in water for a quarter of an hour, remove the skin from it.

Voila! The tongue is ready. You can now make a variety of dishes from it: salads, aspic, soups, snacks. Even those on a low-calorie diet can also use this ingredient.

Often, boiled beef tongue is served as a regular sliced appetizer, accompanied by some kind of sauce. We invite you to deviate from the usual serving, replacing the sauce with homemade adjika, which you can prepare yourself. Wow, how spicy!

If you’ve decided to eat this cut with bread, then we know what to offer you in this case too. Of course, it will be bread, but not ordinary bread, but yeast-free bread. Try baking homemade bread and, most likely, you will then begin to walk around the bakery departments in stores.

Attention! There are three recipes for Bonn soup that can shed those extra pounds once and for all!

Boiled beef tongue: an interesting recipe with photos

For several centuries, our cuisine has been famous for such a cold appetizer as boiled beef tongue. This is an inexpensive and tasty dish that can be found on the menu of many restaurants. Let's find out how you can cook boiled tongue at home and pamper your loved ones with a delicious dish.

Take a large saucepan, pour water into it and put it on the fire. Dip your tongue in there and add a few pieces of black pepper.

Bring to a boil and cook over low heat for a quarter of an hour. Then we take it out and put it in cold water.

Then remove the skin and cook in clean cold water for another 3-3.5 hours.

During the cooking process, add dry bay leaf and black pepper to boiling water, and at the end throw in the herbs.

Cut the finished product diagonally into pieces and place them on a dish, serve with boiled potatoes, horseradish and mustard.

We present to your attention a video with a recipe for properly boiling tongue:

Other delicious recipes

Pasta with tongue and sauce in the oven

Ingredients for the recipe:

For the sauce:

Ghee - 30 g;
Milk - 2 glasses;
Salt - to taste.

Instructions for preparing beef tongue pasta in the oven:

Wash the offal, put it in a pan with salted water, add pepper and garlic. You need to cook for about three hours. Cut the tongue into cubes;
Boil pasta in lightly salted water until half cooked. Drain in a colander and drain, then rinse with cold water;
Prepare the sauce. Add flour to the melted butter and cook until it smells nutty. Remove from heat and pour in hot milk, stir. Season with salt to taste;
Grease the pre-prepared form with oil, pour a little sauce on the bottom, lay out the paste, and sliced tongue on top of the paste. Fill the form with sauce;
Sprinkle with grated cheese and place in a preheated oven at 170 degrees for 15 minutes;
After the casserole with cheese is ready, you can serve it.

This casserole will become your family's favorite dish. Rest assured, having tried this dish just once, you will remember its taste forever.

Cooking aspic in a slow cooker

Ingredients:

1 large tongue;
1 large peeled onion;
1 medium sized carrot;
Dry bay leaf, allspice peas;
20 g gelatin;
Salt to taste.

Place the pre-washed beef tongue in a slow cooker.

Add peeled onions and carrots there and add salt to taste.

After this, add water to cover the tongue, throw in the spices.

Press “Stew” and cook for 3.5 hours.

Pour a pack of gelatin into a bowl, add 150 ml of water and mix well. After an hour, the gelatin is ready;
After the signal, take the tongue out of the multicooker and immerse it in cold water for 5-10 minutes. After which we easily clean it;
Cut the beef offal into thin slices and place on a dish. We decorate beautifully using boiled carrots, eggs or green peas and herbs;
Strain the broth and add gelatin;
Heat until the gelatin is completely dissolved, but not to boil. After cooking, carefully pour it onto your tongue and wait for it to harden.

The aspic is ready - you can serve it!

If you don’t have a multicooker on hand, then watch this wonderful video recipe for cooking jellied beef tongue without using a multicooker:

Salad "Caprice"

Ingredients:

Beef tongue (boiled) - 500 g;
Hard cheese - 150 g;
Mayonnaise (fat content is determined at your discretion) – 200 g;
Olives - half a jar;
Mushrooms – 300 g;
Ripe tomatoes - 2 pcs.;
Salt, ground pepper;
Vegetable oil for frying mushrooms.

Preparing the salad:

Cut the mushrooms into strips and fry;
We also cut the beef tongue into beautiful strips;
Grate the cheese;
Cut the tomatoes into small cubes;
Cut the olives into rings.

After that, put all the products in a deep bowl, add mayonnaise, spices and salt to taste. Mix well. Transfer to a salad bowl and decorate.

For those who are losing weight and love this beef by-product

Following a dietary diet does not mean that a person should not eat meat. There are a large number of recipes, the dishes of which will not only be tasty, but also low in calories.

It is important to choose the right products and follow all cooking recommendations. We offer you a recipe for one of the dietary dishes - “Grace” salad.

It will include:

Boiled beef tongue - 400 g;
Marinated mushrooms - 250 g;
Prunes - 50 g;
1 tomato;
Eggs - 2 pcs;
Dill and parsley;
Olive oil for dressing;
Squeezed lemon juice - to taste;
Salt.

Agree that with such ingredients, a salad simply cannot be tasteless and take my word for it that it really will not bring you extra weight. Dietary salad “Grace” will decorate any holiday table.

Let's start cooking:

Cut the tongue, mushrooms, tomato and boiled eggs into strips;
Add chopped prunes;
Season the salad with olive oil, lemon juice, salt and mix thoroughly;
Place in a salad bowl and sprinkle with chopped herbs.

So we told you everything we wanted about beef tongue: about its correct choice and the most delicious cooking methods. Buy and cook beef tongue according to these recipes and you will appreciate it.

Watch another video with a recipe for a cold tongue appetizer, which will take only 10 minutes to prepare:

Boil beef tongue at home you need to do it right so that the dish turns out tasty and healthy. Beef tongue is one of the healthiest meat products, which is considered a delicacy in many countries. But in order for the finished dish to bring as much benefit as possible, the beef tongue must be properly cooked in order to leave the maximum amount of beneficial elements intact.

How to cook correctly?

After you have decided on the choice of beef tongue and brought it home, all that remains is to cook it tasty and correctly so that it retains the maximum possible amount of useful elements. It will be best if you boil it. Our article will help you with this, in which you will learn several ways in which you can properly cook beef tongue so that it turns out soft.

In a saucepan

Before cooking beef tongue in a pan, defrost it in the refrigerator if it has been frozen, and then place it in a container of cold water for half an hour. After that, arm yourself with a knife and begin to clean the product from mucus and dirt. Ideally, it should not contain any foreign objects or blood. After you have cleaned your tongue, rinse it thoroughly with cool water.

Now choose a convenient pan in which you will cook the tongue, fill it with water and put it on the fire. After boiling, carefully place the beef tongue into it. Be careful, the tongue may increase in size during cooking, so it is better to divide it into two parts to be on the safe side. Cook until the water boils again. In this case, the emerging foam must be removed with a slotted spoon or spoon. After boiling, let the dish cook for about 20 minutes, then pour out the water. Remove the tongue on a saucer, fill it with clean water again and boil. After boiling, put the tongue back into the pan and cook the tongue until fully cooked. This product is cooked for approximately 3.5 hours in total.

To check the readiness of the dish, you need to remove the beef tongue from the water and prick it with a fork: if the product releases clear juice, this means that it is ready. If the juice appears slightly cloudy, then return the tongue to the pan and cook for some more time.

It is necessary to add salt and add spices only half an hour before the end of cooking. You can add any spices you are familiar with to the water. But do not overdo it, otherwise there is a chance of spoiling the real taste of the dish.

Before eating, you need to remove the peel from the finished dish. This is very easy to do if immediately after cooking you put the product in cold water for a few minutes. After this, the beef tongue, cooked at home, is ready to eat.

In a slow cooker

Cooking beef tongue at home using a slow cooker or pressure cooker is a very easy process, which, among other things, requires very little time.

Before cooking beef tongue, it must be thoroughly washed and cleaned of visible dirt, blood and film. Then place the product in the multicooker bowl, add peeled but not chopped onions and carrots there. Close the lid and turn on the multicooker to the “Stew” mode. The time must be set based on the size of the product. The minimum cooking time is two and a half hours. If you choose a large beef tongue, then it is better to set the time to an hour more than the minimum.

20 minutes before the end of cooking, you need to add salt to the dish, and all other spices, if any, must be added after you remove the beef tongue from the multicooker.

After the beep, remove the finished dish from the multicooker, after which it will need to be immersed in cool water for two minutes. This must be done so that the skin can be easily removed. Once you have removed the skin, your home-cooked beef tongue will be ready to eat.

Beef tongue. An extremely delicate delicacy product that requires a special approach. By the way, beef tongue is much healthier than pork tongue, which is why many housewives try to choose it!

Beef tongue is rich in protein, which is extremely important for the full functioning of muscle tissue, and the iron it contains can significantly improve blood composition. This product is recommended for use in case of anemia, in the postoperative period, as well as during pregnancy and lactation. Beef tongue also contains B vitamins, which help normalize the functioning of the nervous system and metabolism. It also contains a lot of zinc, which is useful for treating various skin ailments and helping lower cholesterol.

The most important thing is to purchase a truly high-quality product: the smell of a good tongue should be natural meaty, the color should be slightly violet, lilac or pink, and its texture should be quite soft, but at the same time pliable (when pressed, the tongue should quickly accept original form). If there is too much meat juice in the package, then it is better not to purchase such a tongue. It is also important to ensure that the tongue has a stamp confirming its quality and freshness.

Before you start cooking the beef tongue, wash it thoroughly without removing the film from it, and then soak the tongue for at least an hour in cold water. Next, the offal is boiled, changing the water twice during the cooking process, and about half an hour before the end of cooking, add various roots, bay leaves, spices and onions. And under no circumstances should you salt your tongue at the very beginning of cooking! And when it is cooked, it is poured with cold water - the skin in this case will come off much faster, and it will not be difficult to remove it.

Since the tongue is a muscle, it will take a long time to boil (up to four hours, and sometimes more). First, the beef tongue is poured with hot water and brought to a boil, and then the water is drained, the tongue is filled with new water and cooked until tender, adding liquid as it boils. You can also boil beef tongue in a slow cooker - in this case, it will not only cook faster, but will also turn out much softer and juicier. Boiled tongue can be added to various dishes (including salads), or you can not stop at just boiling it and subsequently stew or bake this delicate product in the oven. It will be especially tasty if you stew or bake it with various vegetables, cheese or mushrooms. And the tongue is served with sweet and sour or spicy sauces.