Barbequed Ox Tongue with Southern Gold Potatoes, Snake Beans and Sticky Mustard Dressing

When I first took on this challenge of cooking every recipe from Ezard's book, I knew that would involve using and eating some parts of animals, which I had never thought about eating before. Having never tried tongue before (apart from the french kissing type of course), I was a little freaked out at the thought of eating an Ox-Tongue, which is why I wanted to get this one done and dusted early on in the challenge. So over the Easter weekend, I gave this one a go.

My first challenge was to find some tongue! Metro nightclub was always a good option when I was younger, but that's not the sort of tongue that I was after this time. Ezard suggests that you need a tongue that has been pickled for at least 10 days. Now, I wasn't going to put just any tongue in my mouth, so I had to go to a butcher's that I knew I could trust. So, my first port of call was to Peter Bouchier Butcher's at David Jones in Melbourne's CBD. These guys have some of the best looking and tasting meat around and if they don't have what you're after, give them enough notice and they can probably get it in for you. I ordered my Tongue and it was in, in just a few days. I was expecting to pick it up and have to pay about $30, but to my surprise, the whole tongue cost $4.50! It weighed well over a kilo too.

While this recipe might take a while to prepare, it's really not that hard at all to put together. Chop up some Leeks, Celery and Onion, place the tongue in the pot and cover with water and some white wine vinegar. You'll need to cook this for about 3 hours and then leave it to cool in it's juices and then refrigerate overnight. This will make it easier to cut later on.

Your sauce with this one is basically a White Wine Vinegar, water and sugar reduction. There is meant to be Champagne Vinegar in there also, but I didn't bother with this, I just added the equivalent White Wine Vinegar. Once you've reduced the sauce, you need to add some mustard seeds and some whole grain mustard.

All you've got left now is your vegetables. Parboil some potatoes, chop them up and fry them in some clarified butter or ghee until golden. Blanch your beans and then mix with the potatoes with some olive oil, salt and pepper.

To prepare the tongue, you need to slice it as finely as you can. I tried my V-Slicer on the slightly thicker setting, but you need that back and forth motion of a knife, so this didn't work. You need to use a long thin knife to do this, to keep your slices as thin as you can. You'll find that the tongue texture is almost exactly like Corned Beef. Once you've sliced your tongue, heat a griddle pan or BBQ until white hot and sear each side quickly and plate up your veggies, then your meat and then some sauce.

The tongue was actually really nice. It has an unusual texture, which really reminded us all of Ham Steaks - Ones like my Mum used to serve us with Pineapple when we were younger. I doubt that I would rush out and make this again in a hurry, because I honestly couldn't get the thought out of my head of what it looked like before I cooked it. It wasn't horrible though, it was quite nice. I've probably eaten hundreds of tongues before in those cheap coles sausages you have at BBQ's, so what's another one on my plate!