Satay Pig's Tongue Stew

I grew up eating all kinds of offals, which some people might consider awful.
I ate hearts, gizzards, livers, intestines, and even (gasp!) brain...normally either deep fried (and consumed with spicy chilli paste) or stewed in delicious Indonesian spices. One of my favorite is...tongue (pig or ox, fine by me), cooked until tender, sliced super thick.

Most Hong Kongers love innards too! However, sc hates tongue. He hates seeing the rough texture of the tongue's outer "skin", which reminds him too much of a...tongue (duh!). He probably feels like he's french kissing a pig or a cow every time he eats a tongue dish.

Naturally, he goes "yuck" every time I tried to buy myself a tongue to cook for dinner.

This time though, since I've promised (cross my heart and hope to die kinda promise) to clean the tongue really really thoroughly and remove most of the outer skin of the tongue...he let me buy and cook one.

I love tongue grilled or stewed, for as long as it is cut real thick. I love it tender and juicy, not thin and crunchy. This time, I need bold, strong flavors, to make sc forget all about the tongue and only think delicious. Thus, I chose satay sauce stew.

Recipe
- one pig's tongue (or ox tongue)
- 5 cm ginger, peeled, crushed, divided
- 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 3 cloves of shallot, cut into chunks
- 2 red chilli
- 3 medium sized ripe tomatoes, cut into 8 sections each
- 2 potatoes, cut into chunks
- Chinese satay sauce (I used the one from Lee Kum Kee)
- Freshly chopped corriander (optional, for garnish)
- hot water, olive oil
- a touch of salt, pepper and sugar (if needed)

Scrub the tongue clean (and I removed most of the outer skin since sc doesn't wanna see it), cut tongue into 1 cm thick chunks, blanch in hot water with half of the ginger and rinse in tap water. In a pressure cooker (or stew pot), saute a garlic, shallot and ginger in a bit of olive oil, add tongue chunks, add tomatoes and potatoes, add a couple spoonful of the satay sauce, add hot water until everything's just covered, bring water to boil, pressure cook for 25 minutes (or stew on low heat for a minimum of one hour or until the tongue chunks are melt-in-you-mouth tender). Once done, adjust seasonings if necessary, garnish with freshly chopped corriander and serve with steamed rice.

Tender and juicy chunks of tongue, soft potatoes, spicy satay sauce with quite a punch of acidity from the tomatoes. This dish is great when the weather's cooler, but I'm always up for a good stew any time ^_^

This time, having forgotten that he was enjoying some tongue action from a pig...sc enjoyed the dish very much :D