Bite your tongue
By KENJI ALT | January 9, 2008
When it comes to exciting members of the animal kingdom, it’s hard to beat a bull. In rodeos, the encierro of Pamplona, and bullfights, these beautiful beasts snort and stomp their way to glory. Ken Oringer’s two-year-old South End tapas joint Toro (“bull” in Spanish) does the same with more than a bit of bravura and machismo thrown into the mix.On the other hand, cows are not the most exhilarating denizens of the farmyard. Aside from swatting the occasional fly, often their only activity is eating. As a result, cows’ tongues get a pretty hefty workout, yielding highly flavorful but extraordinarily tough protein. But of all the melt-in-your-mouth dishes in the city, Toro’s lengua con lentejas y salsa verde may well be the meltingest. So how does this transformation take place?
After getting the corned-beef treatment (they’re pickled in brine), the tongues are packed in a wet cure of salt, onion, herbs, and other aromatics and allowed to rest for a minimum of 12 hours to form a strong flavor base for the onslaught to come. Next day: a plunge into a vat of rendered flavored duck fat, in which they slowly cook à la duck confit for several hours at a hot-bath temperature. Once the exterior skin starts to loosen up, it’s carefully exfoliated to reveal the bright pink meat underneath — meaning it’s probably had a better spa treatment than you ever will. After chilling (the hot tongue is so tender it’ll fall apart at the slightest touch of a knife), it’s sliced thick before getting a final simmer in vegetable stock.
The complex meaty, vegetal, briny, duck-fatty flavors are interesting enough on their own, but paired with a sweet-tart herbal salsa verde and tender-yet-intact lentils spiked with sherry vinegar, they become something worth wrapping your tongue around again and again.
Available for $11 at Toro, 1704 Washington Street, in Boston. Call 617.536.4300.
Related:
Toro, Taste of summer, Flash without fire, More 
- Toro
Likeable, except for the name and the lines.
- Taste of summer
Winter got you down?
- Flash without fire
The aim of the DeCordova Museum’s Annual Exhibition is to round up “some of the most interesting and visually eloquent” New England artists.
- The 100 worst lyrics of all time
"My lovely lady lumps," "She's my cherry pie," and other phrases that make you go "Ewwww."
- Italian Express
East Boston may or may not be the city’s other North End, but it does have strong Italian flavor.
- Seeing the unseeable
In tonal music and in dance it never happens.
- Divine hammer
During a recent Washington, DC, conference dedicated to the “War on Christians,” pastor Rick Scarborough — author of Liberalism Kills Kids — labeled Tom DeLay a martyr to his faith.
- A Boston booze time line
The Pilgrims land in Plymouth because they're out of booze. As good a reason to start a country as any.
- Wicked Natural Caramel Mustard
It’s easy to imagine the lucky culinary mishap that launched Wicked Good’s bold concoction as a version of that old Reese’s ad: “You got caramel in my mustard!”
- Trash talk
Trash night. Trash night, trash night, trash night. Abfallnacht , as they probably call it in Germany.
- City Feed and Supply
Put down your brown-rice sushi and get thee to Jamaica Plain’s City Feed And Supply, a throwback to the days of mom-and-pop corner stores.
- Less
Topics:
Hot Plate
, Culture and Lifestyle, Food and Cooking, Foods, More
, Culture and Lifestyle, Food and Cooking, Foods, Fruits and Vegetables, TORO, TORO, Less
