This isn’t really a recipe, more a storytelling post for my own entertainment.
tl;dr I had the great idea to combine two things that probably are not often or at all put together: pan-fried beef tongue and pandebono (Colombian cheese bread).
I made a trip out to Industry City with my roommate for the Brooklyn Crush Wine & Artisanal Food Festival last weekend. Since we were out there anyway, I explored the area on Google Maps to see if there was anything worth stopping by. Turns out Japan Village is around the corner, so naturally I had to do some grocery shopping. Roommate (and 5 bottles of mead–see postscript) in tow, I excitedly roamed around the supermarket. While it was smaller than I’d hoped–I’ve been spoiled by the huge supermarket-cum-department-stores dotting Hong Kong–I found myriad enticing items. God yes- fresh soy milk! Beef tongue! Sashimi-grade fish! Pickled plums with ume!
Inspired by the abundance of rarely-seen items, I suggested we do a Japanese dinner with sushi and fried beef tongue. An hour train ride and an hour of waiting for the rice to cook later, I make a salmon avocado roll, a chopped toro and scallion roll, and slice the remaining salmon for sashimi. Half of the beef tongue gets pan-fried with salt and pepper; my new darling cast-iron skillet gets deglazed with red wine and some garlic powder for a simple pan sauce.
Long context short, I had a portion of beef tongue left over. Sunday I went on a very nice date and had Colombian food for the first time. I’d mentioned I like bread so he very thoughtfully suggested we go get Colombian food and I could try pandebono, Colombian bread. It was about an hour to get to Jackson Heights, but it was worth it. We had a pleasant and conversation-filled brunch and a nice walk after.
So I had an extra pandebono (we bought two). I had an amazing idea and decided to halve the bread and use it as a bun for my remaining beef tongue. I garnished with garlic and scallion and had a red wine and garlic pan sauce on the side.
Ingredients
pandebono
about 1.5 oz beef tongue, thinly sliced
1 scallion
1 garlic clove
salt and pepper to taste
(optional) 1/4 cup red wine
- Toast pandebono at 400 F for 3 minutes if kept at room temperature. If kept in the fridge, toast for 6 minutes.
- While bread is in the oven, season beef tongue with salt and pepper. Pan fry on lightly oiled pan until slightly browned on both sides (any more and it gets tough). Slice into strips.
- Slice the clove of garlic and scallion.
- (Optionally) De-glaze the pan with red wine and add a few garlic slices as the wine is simmering down.
- Halve the pandebono and pile the beef tongue strips on top. Garnish with garlic slices and scallion- attempt to fit all the scallion onto the bun and fail dramatically.
- Eat with pan sauce for dipping.
To be honest, I started thinking about making this on Sunday night, but I didn’t get the opportunity to until Tuesday night, which was about the last day I could safely keep the beef tongue in the fridge anyway. Definitely worth the wait.
Story
Brooklyn Crush invited many, many vendors to the event. The venue was super packed and each vendor only got about 6 square meters of space, approximately. That’s why when we got to a vendor called All-Wise Meadery, manned by two young men, I simply noted that the Asian guy at the table was pretty cute and went about washing my glass out. Roomie taps on my shoulder and whispers something completely unintelligible in my ear. “Eh?” I turn.
“What?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
“Huh? What is it?”
“That’s Zack from Suite Life of Zack and Cody…”
The actual transcript of our whispered conversation in front of Dylan Sprouse.
I whip around to check, of course, and am completely flabbergasted. The next step is to crack up. Long story short, I end up buying five bottles of their mead. Highly recommend the Dirty Show.