Mother, tongue
Anna King Shahab falls in love with a tongue dish at alma and reflects on the evolution of offal in her life
by Anna King Shahab
My mum loved offal. Unfortunately my tastes weren’t as sophisticated until after she died when I was in my early 20s. I mean, I’d do pâté. But I was quick to turn my nose up at more obvious guises of kidneys, liver, tongue, heart. It was learned behaviour I suppose because I definitely ate those things early on in life before prejudices had had a chance to kick in. I can still remember mum serving me lamb’s brains she had poached, on white rice, in my nursery rhyme-painted ceramic bowl. I’d have been three or four.
As a young adult, I was a reasonably adventurous eater outside the domain of offal; offal just wasn’t for me. At least, not in the way it tended to be cooked in our house – sorry, mum! Mum was a great cook but it would be fair to say her comfort zone was fairly Anglo, straying French in her very liberal use of butter and cream (yet she remained very slender, paradoxically). So offal was served up with little to distract from the nuts and bolts of it: liver sauteed with onion, kidneys doused with a little Worcestershire sauce and a lot of cream, and tongue – well ox tongue was boiled up with a few aromatics (bay leaf, certainly – I still vaguely associate the whiff of bay leaf with a whole tongue boiling away in the stock pot). You’d open the fridge and there it would be, a whole cooked tongue resting on a plate, its taste buds standing to attention, looking mournfully unlikely to be wholly consumed in this household of one woman and two offal-avoidant teens.
When my sister and I were a bit older and headed off to the other side of the world backpacking, mum revelled in cooking up and eating offal as much as her heart desired. I love to think of her sitting down to tuck into something she loved with no whining protest. With children of my own, I know the feeling. I just wish I’d had mum around a bit longer until my tastes had matured more and I’d have debated the finer details rather than refusing offal outright. And I wish she’d been around to see offal and secondary cuts become ‘cool’ again thanks to the nose-to-tail movement. 20 years ago, whenever we were dining out, mum would hopefully scour the menu for any hint of something outside the prime cut remit, and rarely find it.
If mum was here today, I’d take her out for lunch at alma and among other delicious things we’d order the tongue. Thinly shaved tongue has become fairly commonplace on menus here over the past few decades, served carpaccio style or marinated and threaded onto skewers to cook over charcoal in yakitori style. It’s still not often we see a thicker, ‘tongue, and proud’ presentation. alma’s chef Jo Pearson bucks the trend with Beef tongue, olive, preserved lemon – a hearty ‘steak’ of tongue cooked over the fire that is the heart of the Andalusian-inspired restaurant; a flavoursome and unctuous dish that has remained on the menu, winning over diners and claiming awards. I asked Jo to talk me through the dish.
Why did you choose to put beef tongue on the menu?
We have always had a large bone-in steak to share on our menu but I also wanted to have a smaller beef option on the menu, because alma is a small restaurant so many of our tables are guests of two and four. I have always loved secondary cuts and offal (no waste, use the entire animal!) so instead of a prime cut I decided to treat ox tongue as a 'steak'.
Talk us through your prep and cooking of the dish (obviously you don't want to give away any trade secrets, but whatever you feel comfy sharing here).
No such thing as trade secrets – open book here! We brine the tongue for five days; this helps to purge some of the blood and season the meat. We then poach, peel and chill the tongue before slicing it into steaks and cooking it over embers.
It can’t be quite that simple! What other elements and flavours on that plate add to it to create a balanced dish?
The flavour profile of the dish was inspired by chicken tagine with olives and preserved lemon as well as steak Bearnaise. Elements from each of those dishes have been used to compliment the tongue. The tongue is glazed with olive oil and preserved lemon brine then garnished with saffron aioli, preserved lemon and tarragon picada, and sliced Gordal olives.
Is this a dish you get a lot of positive, and surprised, comments on?
Feedback is always positive on this dish, once people get over the shock of seeing an actual tongue on the plate! I think many of us grew up eating bland, boiled or jellied tongue, so diners are surprised at the immense flavour tongue has if treated with care.
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Lazy Susan is proud to work with Freedom Farms as sponsors of our summer content series. Freedom Farms pork comes from independently audited farms in Aotearoa New Zealand. No exceptions. Freedom Farms is committed to supporting farming that is kinder for farm animals, taking it easy on the environment, and figuring out how to grow a better food future.
