We love offal (organ meats) at home and tongue is among our favorites. While it is quite alright to simmer the tongues on the stovetop using a regular pot, the convenience of tenderizing the meat in the slow cooker dispenses with the need to check if the cooking liquid has dried out before the tongues are fully cooked.
½cupsoy saucemore or less, depending on the saltiness of your brand of soy sauce or whether you’re using light or dark soy sauce
2star anise
2bay leaves
12peppercorns
¼cupsugar
6clovesgarlic
2 to 3tablespoonstapioca starchor corn or potato starch
Instructions
Clean the pork tongues
Place the pork tongues in a bowl, pour in the vinegar and rinse the tongues in it. Rub the vinegar on the skin several times and drain. Rinse under the tap several times.
Take a handful of rock salt and rub all over the tongues. Rinse. Repeat until the skin no longer feels slimy.
Cook the pork tongues
Spread the onion slices on the bottom of the slow cooker.
Arrange the tongues on top of the onion slices.
Add the rest of the ingredients except the starch.
Set the slow cooker to LOW and cook the pork tongues for six hours.
Scoop out the tongues and cool.
With a blunt knife, scrape the skins off the tongues and discard.
Slice the pork tongues. Thickly or thinly, it's up to you.
Make the asado sauce
Strain the cooking liquid into a pan. Reserve half a cup. Boil the rest until reduced by half.
Disperse the starch in the reserved cooking liquid.
Pour half of the starch solution into the boiling liquid and stir until no longer cloudy. If the sauce is still too thin, add the rest of the starch. Lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
Taste the sauce and adjust the seasonings.
Serve the pork tongue with asado sauce
Scoop rice into bowls.
Arrange the pork tongue slices over rice and spoon some of the sauce over them.
Notes
This is an updated version of the pork tongue asado recipe originally published on April 28, 2003.