Tacos de lengua

We love tacos. Fish, shrimp, al pastor, chorizo, ground beef, shredded chicken, BBQ, carne asada, just about any kind you can think of… we love them.

A while back, our friend, John, told us that he had just had the best tacos ever. Being an adventurous eater, he and a friend had stopped at a food truck where there were a variety of tacos, including tacos de lengua. Out of the three tacos he chose that day, he said that the taco de lengua was by far the best of all… better than a steak taco, better than a chorizo taco, better than an al pastor taco, better than any he’d ever had.

A few weeks after John told us this story, my family ended up at a local taco shop that had tacos de lengua on the menu. My son, remembering John’s story, ordered one… but they were out of lengua by that time in the day.

We were intrigued… how could tacos de lengua be such a fabulous taco filling?

If you don’t know, lengua is beef tongue. We have been processing our own beef for a while now but I’d never been brave enough to take on the tongue! And I’d consider myself an adventurous eater, too.

So, with John’s hearty endorsement, I set out to cook beef tongue for tacos. We put it on the calendar and John made plans to join us for tacos de lengua.

First of all, let me just say that beef tongue is not an attractive piece of meat. But it is still just that— meat. And it’s a muscle that is well-used throughout the animal’s life. More muscle use = more flavorful meat.

Yikes! I tried not to look at them very closely at this stage of the cooking process…

And, being a well-used muscle, the tongue is not a tender piece of meat… at least not when you start out.

The first step to cooking tough pieces of fresh meat is to cook them low and slow. So, I took these strange looking chunks of meat, added some aromatics and water, and cooked them in the slow cooker for about 9 hours on high. (If you don’t want to wait that long, you could use a pressure cooker.) I decided the tongues were done when a skewer pierced the meat easily.

That’s a little better… covered by aromatics and spices.

Once the tongues were cooked to tenderness, I had to remove the skin. Bleh. Thankfully, the skin peeled away really easily and I was able to get it gone FAST. Now the meat didn’t look so unappetizing. In fact, it was a delicious shade of deep red, like an excellent steak before you cook it.

After the skin was removed, I cut the meat into a small dice. The knife slid through the the meat as if it was warm butter… this was getting better and better!

The final step before setting up the taco bar was to sear the diced meat in a hot skillet with a bit of salt and pepper.

Ready to serve…

We opted for a variety of toppings…

Cooking complete, I set out the toppings and tortillas. We all assembled our tacos with the toppings that seemed best and then…

They were gone in an instant! My kids had finished their first taco and were back for seconds before I had even come to the table to take my first bite. They were that good.

The diced meat was like silk in your mouth. And the taste was incredible. All four of us agreed with John: this was one of the best tacos ever!

Best. Taco. EVER.

“So”, you might be thinking, “if beef tongue tacos are so good, why aren’t they on the menu at my favorite Mexican restaurant? Or the menu at the taco truck? Or any other place I’ve had tacos?” Which is an excellent question.

If you think about it, most of those establishments are set up for “Americanized” food. And, honestly, if you saw “tongue” on the menu, would you choose it over steak? Or chorizo? If you’re like me, probably not.

But remember that local taco shop I mentioned at the beginning? They are NOT serving “American” style Mexican food. The menu is all in Spanish, and the employees don’t speak English. So, they had LOTS of unusual (to my stomach) fillings on their menu… including beef tongue.

And now that we’ve had beef tongue tacos for ourselves, I understand why that taco shop didn’t have any tacos de lengua that day. The regular customers that come in to that shop multiple times each week snapped up those tacos before the lunch hour was even 10 minutes in!

Now that my family knows how good tacos de lengua are, you can be sure that we will never again pass up a chance to have them when we find them… and I know I’ll be making them again, too.

If you are brave enough to try making your own tacos de lengua, you can check out my recipe for Tacos de Lengua (Beef Tongue Tacos).