tacos de lengua

Say it out loud. Don't you like how the words roll off your tongue? Phonoaesthetic.

Tuesday night, on the prompting of one Lauren Smith, I embarked on a culinary adventure, Beef Tongue. Actually it was more like Tuesday afternoon, preparing a tongue takes some elbow grease. First you get to wash it, then you get to photograph it, then you get to boil and simmer it (for three hours), then you get to peel it, then you apply the knife, then you fry it up, then you photograph it some more and finally you get to eat it.

That much work could make anything taste good. Actually, tongue is quite tasty on its own. Prior to Tuesday top blade steak was the most underrated cut of beef in my book, not any longer, tongue has claimed that title. Slow cooking this fatty cut causes the meat to come out like Sunday roast. The recipe that we chose for Tuesday night is a staple of higher class taco trucks around the world. In fact, if your taco truck is not serving lengua you need to question not only the quality of all of the food served there, but the status of your soul. Warm tortillas, fresh pico de gallo, sour cream, cheese and tongue. Heaven.

Needless to say Lauren and I tore through them ... Michelle, that is a different story. Do not feel bad for her though, she received chicken thighs that had been slow cooking in Rotel so long that they feel apart with a spoon.

To wash things down, I baked a sweet potato pound cake. Yeah that's right, a Sweet ... Potato ... Pound ... Cake. The sweet potatoes cut right through the extra-sweetness typical of a pound cake and made for a warm, nutmegy gratification on a cold winter night. All was right in the world.

stock or soup?

Which came first the stock or the soup? What is the difference between stock, bouillon and broth? If a dead stock were poured in a forest with no one around, would it make a sound? These are my new philosophical crises.

Recipe ii in the book is for french onion soup. A classic. But of course french onion calls for beef stock. Rather than listening to the sound reasoning of my wife, and running down to Publix (where shopping is pleasurable) to by a box of Swanson broth, I resolved to make my own. Enter the above questions. Beef stock is very similar to some beef soup.

Onions, carrots and beef all in a pot simmering for a long time, if that ain't soup then tell me what is. In fact after clarifying enough stock for the soon coming french onion soup, I threw the rest back in with the vegetables and beef shank for this evening's supper. I guess soup becomes stock when you remove all the bits, and stock becomes soup when you add it back in.

My second quandary when launching on this stock/broth/bouillon adventure was what to include in the bouquet garni, dried or fresh herbs. I remembered reading once in Men's Health that dried herbs performed better in slow cooked dishes, thus I went dry. We will have to plant an herb garden here soon, as almost all of these recipes call for thyme and flat leaf (Italian) parsley.

Finally, I have included an action shot. I am already tired of photographing food looking down into a pot. Perhaps I will do some research on photography, specifically of food.