Beef tongue and mushrooms in Bechamel sauce

The key to cooking a good beef tongue dish is to make sure that the meat has no strong smell by the time it lands on your plate. It should also be properly trimmed and melt-in-the-mouth tender.

Granted, accomplishing all that takes time. Beef tongue takes hours to cook. But if you do the work in segments, cooking beef tongue becomes less intimidating.

Cook the tongue a day ahead, let it cool slowly in the cooking liquid, scoop out, chill overnight in the fridge if you have time, then peel so that it’s ready to be cooked with mushrooms and Bechamel sauce.

You’ll need fresh button mushrooms for this dish. Canned just doesn’t work because there’s no flavor left to be squeezed out and because you just can’t brown mushrooms that have been sitting in brine for a long time. You’ll also need real butter to saute garlic and the mushrooms. Not margarine. Not butter substitute. Real butter.

And you’ll need more butter to brown the fully cooked beef tongue slices. This stage gives the tongue better texture due to caramelization. Instead of having a mouth feel of boiled meat, a thin crust forms on the surface which transforms the texture in a serious way.

And then, you’ll need some more butter to make roux which forms the base of Bechamel sauce. To prevent the sauce from acquiring an overwhelming taste of cream and losing the beefy flavor, a little broth is added. It can be the liquid in which the tongue has been cooked. Or, if you find that still too strong in smell, use plain beef broth.

The cream goes in next. It won’t be Bechamel sauce, after all, without the cream. After the cream is added, the sauce is simmered until thickened and no longer leaves a flour-y sensation in the mouth.

The browned garlic, button mushrooms and beef tongue slices are tossed in the Bechamel sauce and the dish is done.