Many Pieces of Tongue

I think years of practice have yielded a satisfying recipe for the man's version of braised beef/ox-tongue. Let it sit in brine, then boil it up on the stove and leave it in the oven for another 3.5 hours for that not-mushy-but-bit-of-bit-tender texture. The many occasions of cooking tongues have also ingrained the recipes into me. Don't know if the man noted it down somewhere. It's like, oh, making ox-tongue? Okay, here's the rectangular box for the brine, then buy a bunch of colourful vegetables to boil, etc, and ta-dahhh. Doh.

Over the protracted holiday season, the man's been churning out slices and boxes of ox-tongue from the kitchen non-stop. For 4 months since last November, there was always an ox-tongue sitting in the fridge being brined. The family is ridiculously in love with ox tongue. We don't have that many friends who love it! It's a piece of offal so high in fat (75%!) and resulting cholesterol level that we've no guts to make and serve it more than twice a year. The man cooked the last piece for February before he flew off on another work trip. The sliced tongue sat in the freezer for two days. That would make easier to remove oils and fats anyway. The friends just picked it up. Didn't care what they do with it. The easiest is to make a sandwich. They could rustle up a stew or a soup, then drop the already-tender slices into the pot. Prepped food does make good presents. :)

Ox/beef tongues in Singapore are so pricey compared to overseas, say London's at about £15 for a slightly more than 1.2kg plain tongue; approximately £11 per kg. Ours cost about S$53 - S$65, depending on where we buy it from, and its weight. I know how astronomical the prices of imports of food are, especially when we cook at home and don't stinge on ingredients. Still.