Lengua

Lengua is a Mexican beef dish.  Wanna see what part of the cow it uses?

That pan is about 10 inches across.

You know, I had tongue once before.  I visited my best friend in Philly recently and she was kind enough to buy me a quarter pound of sliced beef tongue from a deli. It smelled like a mix of pastrami and cat food.  Tasted alright though.

Unfortunately, girlfriend is not currently available to be traumatized. Luckily, my good friend Emi, who is also a vegetarian, has opted to be present during the bulk of its preparation. Lucky thing too. Half of the fun of this blog is inflicting it on others.  Of course, this is one of MY friends we’re talking about here.  They don't horrify easily and they tend to bounce back quickly. As I began prep we bantered about how the cow probably wanted to be an actress when she grew up, and had a loving family, and was going to go to college before it was all tragically cut short. Naturally, I held it in front of my mouth while standing very close to Emi as she was looking at something else and made a loud, throaty “BLULULULUAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGG” sound when she noticed me. You know, the usual stuff people do when cooking. You know, I can't help but notice that the taste buds are pretty prominent.  You could feel them through the packaging.  By the way, if you’re a tongue aficionado and the color of the tongue seems a bit off, it’s because it was pre-smoked, not raw.

You need:

Beef tongue

5 Green chilis: I used serrano peppers

2 cans of corn

4 roma tomatoes

A small white or yellow onion

4 cloves of garlic

Total cost: $20 - $30 

Before you do anything else, you have to boil the tongue for 40-50 minutes per pound.  Why?  Because you need to skin it, of course!  Who ever heard of eating the skin on a cow tongue?  That would just be gross. By the way Emi noted that it smells like hot dogs.  As it boiled the smell became more and more prominent, until it filled every inch of my tiny, studio apartment.  Infer from that what you will. When it's done, set the tongue aside to cool for a few minutes.

Now skin it.  I thought this would be difficult, but you can actually just peel it off with your fingers.  It comes off very easily.

Now thinly slice the tongue.  The meat is very tender and easy to cut, so this only takes a minute.  You can chop it more finely if your skillet isn’t big enough. 

Now get your veggies ready!  In a skillet, roast the peppers over medium heat until the sides are charred.  The more charred it is, the easier it is to skin them.  Take them off of the heat, let them cool off a bit and rub the skin off.  If you’re using very hot peppers, or doubt your manual dexterity you should wear gloves to keep oil from getting under your nails because that shit is ridiculously painful. I once got datil pepper oil under my thumb nail and I thought it was going to melt off. Now cut off the tops and coarsely chop the peppers.  If you want your lengua to be spicier, leave the seeds in.  Now thinly slice the onion, mince the garlic, and coarsely shop the tomatoes.  Get your cans of corn ready as well.

Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high heat.  Transfer the peppers, garlic, and onion into the pan. Cook until the onions are translucent.

Add the beef tongue.  Cook for an additional 10 minutes to brown the meat.

Add the tomatoes, and cook them until they’re soft.  5 minutes should do it.

Finally, add drain and add the corn.  Cook for another 5 minutes or so to heat it. My skillet was not nearly big enough for this.

It tastes a bit like bland beef, but the fat gives it a hint of sweetness that's a bit like pork.  The slight heat from the peppers is quite nice and the firm texture of the corn compliments the tenderness of the beef. All of the meat and veggies absorbed some of the oil from the hot peppers, so the heat is nice and even, without being too strong.  All of the ingredients complement each other very nicely. This is really excellent.  I’m sure your average American meat-eater would love this as long as you don’t tell them it has tongue in it. That apparently works for hot dogs.  Stay queer!

Booze and bacon milkshake

My best friend (who also did some of the photography for this post) alerted me to the fact that a restaurant somewhere rum and bacon milkshakes on its menu.  This interested me enough to want to try to make one, but not enough to actually look for a recipe or stay true to more than 50% of the stated main ingredients.  I decided to make my own version.  I didn’t even measure 3 of the 5 ingredients because I'm a rebel like that.

You will need

Liquor: I used this cheap brand of burbon called 10 High. 

Milk

French Vanilla ice cream

Oreos

Maple Bacon

Price range: $20- $30

The burbon was free and everything else was on sale, so it was actually more like $10 in my case. You can make a LOT of shake with a small amount of ingredients. Why not have some friends over and make a day of it?

 

Anyway, fry yourself up some bacon to your desired crispiness.  I made three strips.

 

Next add milk and three oreos to a blender.  Don’t use much milk if you want a thick shake.  The bourbon thins it out considerably. Of course, you can always add more milk or ice cream later if you're not happy with the consistency. 

Now add your ice cream.  

Add a generous amount of booze.

Throw the bacon in.

Now blend it like you mean it…

… and if your feeling decadent:

I love it. The bourbon, oreo and maple all combine into a sort of amaretto-ish flavor.  The bacon is reduced to a billion tiny bits so if you want to taste it you have to chew it a little bit. The resulting texture is slightly grainy but, since the bacon is also soft, it's not gritty or gross.  The sweetness of the maple bacon and kick of the burbon compliment each other nicely.  By the way, the other ingredients do nothing to mask the taste of the liquor, which could make it or break it for some. This is a really fun recipe and it's a great comfort food. My only complaint is that it may put you into a sugar coma.  Stay queer!

Spiced habanero peanut butter cookies

The bread mix wasn’t the only thing my sister (who has requested that I refer to her as “the cool sister” from now on) gave me.  I also got a jar of habanero peanut butter, and what better way to try it out than to make peanut butter cookies with it?  .  

No, I'm not being sponsored by Asskickin' (not the company anyway). 

Well, I guess this is the good stuff because it separated.  The oil is red. I like how this is going so far. “Maybe they aren’t fucking around”, thought I.  I tasted a bit and indeed they are not.  I’m getting the full effect of both peanut butter and straight hot sauce.  I guess if you want to make your own you could just add some ground habanero or hot sauce to regular peanut butter.  By the by, once it’s been stirred up it doesn’t look or smell any different from regular peanut butter, which could make it awesome for playing practical jokes.  Also, you didn’t hear that from me.  This is probably a good time to mention that intentionally feeding someone something that they’re allergic to without them knowing can land you in very serious legal trouble so don’t be too much of a jerk.   

There are a million different, yet highly similar, recipes for peanut butter cookies so don’t feel like you have to use the one I’m using.  As long as peanut butter ends up baked into some sort of cookie-like confectionery you should be golden.  In my opinion, the focus of peanut butter cookies should be peanuts, so this recipe is pretty much straight peanut butter topped with peanuts. I think that actually makes it gluten-free.

You will need:

Some marriage of hot pepper and peanut butter

Eggs

White sugar

Baking soda

Vanilla extract

Salt

Thai spiced peanuts (You can buy these from some grocery stores or make your own)

Butter or baking parchment
Price range: $20 - $30

The following recipe may need to be tweaked if you're using crap like Skippy but that’s really more of a problem for you than for me, isn’t it? Preheat your over to 350.  Grease or lay baking parchment on a cookie sheet.  Mix together a cup of peanut butter and a cup of sugar until it’s thoroughly blended.  If there are any lumps in the sugar try to break them up before you start mixing.  The resulting dough is really sticky and thick so stirring out any of the little bastards is a bit of a pain.  Stir in one egg in, ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon of baking powder and a pinch of salt.  Happily, I now get to revisit my favorite part of the spiced prune and cheese pudding.  Put about 1/3 of a cup of peanuts into a resealable bag, smash them up with something that your ex gave you until they’re ground to whatever consistency you desire, and stir them into the dough.  Roll the dough into balls and place them on the baking sheet.  Cookies made with this recipe don’t spread much so they don’t need that much room. Depending on how big you make them, you should get between 18 and 24 cookies.

Now lightly press a fork into each one.  This flattens them out, which makes them cook more evenly and makes them look kinda cool.

Cook them for 20 minutes. They should come out really soft.  They firmed up a bit after they cooled but not very much. I mean, they're wads of peanut butter after all.

Wow.  Peanut butter and pad thai got drunk and had a love child.  A love child that listens to punk rock, has 3 girlfriends, and is full of hot sauce.  These are wonderfully peanut buttery and sweet.  The combination of heat, thai spices, and peanut is really tasty and the texture is very pleasant.  It isn’t as strong as the beer bread but it’s still pretty hot.  They also smell like pad thai.  The effect is kind of weird but it’s not bad.   In addition to how good they taste, I think they could be really versitle.  They would be great for a chili festival or with beer and pizza or teaching roommates, pets, and rascally, Dickensian urchins a learned aversion to stealing your food.  Stay queer!

Spiced Prune and Cheese Pudding

Wartime, prison time, and college are all similar, in that they will lead you to try some very odd food combinations in a desperate effort to add enough variety to your meals to ward off those cannibalistic urges  which are always, always hiding just below the surface, barely restrained by the trappings of social niceties, and which tend to become stronger when coupled with a monotonous diet.

Rationing can lead to some pretty weird recipes, some of which stick around long after better things become available.  Don’t believe me?  Look through a cookbook from the 40’s or 50’s and see how long it takes for you to find something that sounds bat shit crazy.  In a gesture indicating that she wishes I had moved out sooner, my mom sent me a recipe for spiced prune and cheese pudding, which came from some cookbook that was published in 1956. 

No, this is not like a Yorkshire pudding.  No it’s not cheddar cheese, or swiss or any other kinds of wholesome, God-fearing cheeses that all red-blooded Americans consume by the pound.  This is a dessert pudding and it’s made with cottage cheese.  They weren’t kidding when they called this "spiced pudding".  If you don’t already have the required spices then this recipe can get real pricy, real fast. Also you should stock your kitchen better.  Luckily, I do have a well stocked spice rack. I’m graduating from college this week and I need that money for beer and shenanigans.  Anyway, you will need:

Eggs

Dried prunes

Nilla wafers

Chopped walnuts 

Cottage cheese

Cream or evaporated milk

A lemon

Butter

Sugar

Flour

Salt

Cinnamon

Nutmeg

Ground cloves

Butter 1 1/5 quart casserole dish and set it aside.

The recipe says to cover ¾ of a cup of dried prunes in boiled water and simmer it for about 45 minutes, or until tender.  Coarsely chop them and remove the pits.  Luckily, packaged dried prunes these days are usually pitted and pretty tender to start with, so that step isn't strictly necessary.

Now you need to melt three tablespoons of butter and make a half cup of nilla wafer crumbs, which takes about 12 cookies.  Put them in a big resealable bag and take your frustrations out on them.  Now mix the crumbs together with the butter and set it aside. 

Measure out a half cup of chopped walnuts and set aside

Sift together 1/3 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon flour, 1/4 tsp salt, cinnamon and nutmeg and 1/8 tsp cloves. Set aside.

It says to put 1 ½ cups of cottage cheese through a sieve to strain out excess moisture. Luckily,cottage cheese technology has marched on and you probably don't need to do that. Anyway, mix it with 2 beaten eggs, a half cup of cream or undiluted evaporated milk, 1 tsp lemon juice and 1/2 tsp grated lemon peel.

Stir the dry mixture, chopped walnuts and prunes into it. 

Now it says to “Turn mixture into casserole”.  I’m going to assume that means that you should pour the mixture into the dish now.   

Everyone here agrees that it looks like vomit.  Opinion is divided as to what kind of animal it came from.

Top it with the wafer crumbs. 

Better.

Bake at 350 35-50 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.  I ended up cooking it for about an hour.  Serve it warm.

 

Oh wow…This is actually good.  It’s actually really good.  I don't like dried fruit so that's a nice surprise.  It tastes a little bit like a baked apple.  The texture is a bit like a dense cobbler crossed with a quiche.  Sorry if this description is a bit confusing.  It’s a bit hard to find relevant comparisons.  Four of my friends also tried it.  The general verdict is “It tastes nice but the texture is weird”. I guess we can now rest assured that this recipe is just as successful at staving off cannibalism today as it was in the 50's.  

Stay queer!