Delicious grilled Gyutan or BBQ Beef Tongue is a popular appetizer at yakiniku (barbecue) restaurants in Japan. In this recipe, we marinate thinly sliced beef tongue in yuzu pepper for a sophisticated and spicy taste, then quickly grill it just until tender.
I hope you had a wonderful July 4th celebration yesterday with family and friends. My family had a great time celebrating at a friend’s house with a delicious barbecue followed by fireworks nearby. Our friend is a master of smoking the most delicious baby back ribs and I’ll be featuring him and his smoked rib recipe later on.
Today I’m guest posting at an extraordinary cook and photographer – Lori Lynn’s blog, The Taste With The Eyes.
As the blog name suggests, the recipes featured on the website are simply eye candy for anyone into exquisitely prepared food and gorgeous photos. When I look at the food pictures in Lori Lynn’s posts, they are not ordinary food that I can imagine myself cooking. In fact, it almost feels like I am at an art gallery that’s exhibiting food photography. Her creations are so beautiful that you easily taste with your eyes first (unfortunately it’s a blog so you can’t taste it too. How sad!). It’s a cliche but I have to say it here. If you haven’t visited her blog before, you must stop by. Among her posts, some of my favorites are Summer’s Chilled Soup and Meyer Lemon and Pink Rose Risotto.
I’ve known Lori Lynn and her blog for about a year and she’s now celebrating her 5th blog anniversary this month. I am honored that she has invited me to participate on her site, where she displays outstanding food that I truly admire. If you are a food blogger, you’ll understand what I mean. I cherish her culinary talent and friendship and hope to continue learning from her.
I won’t continue babbling on and it’s much easier for me to explain if you just pop over and take a look at her creations. For the guest post, I cooked something exotic as per her request. Please check the recipe as well as detailed information about gyutan by clicking HERE.
Gyutan is grilled sliced beef tongue and the Japanese word gyutan is a combination of the Japanese word for cow (gyu) and the English word tongue (tan). The region in Japan that first started to cook gyutan was Sendai and it was initially considered a rather unusual dish, but gradually gained popularity throughout Japan around the 1950s.
Gyutan is one of the popular items to order at yakiniku (Japanese barbecue) restaurants. We usually grill these thinly sliced beef tongues and flavor them with salt. However, the way my husband and I like to eat gyutan is with yuzu juice and yuzu kosho (citrus pepper).
Yuzu is a citrus fruit fondly used for many Japanese dishes and desserts. We use the aromatic zest for garnishing and its juice for seasoning. It’s quite hard to find fresh yuzu fruit, so I got this yuzu juice bottle from a Japanese supermarket.
Yuzu kosho is a fermented paste made from chili peppers, yuzu peel, and salt. We use it for flavoring yakitori (Japanese grilled chicken), udon soup, tempura, sashimi, and Japanese hot pot. Yuzu kosho may come in a jar or in a small tube container.
Both yuzu juice and Yuzu kosho give a nice tart and spicy kick to the gyutan and it adds a level of sophisticated flavor that is difficult to replicate with other spices. Another favorite to enjoy sliced gyutan is to just simply sprinkle it with a bit of salt and pepper, barbeque, and dip it in lemon sauce. Gyutan burns and catches fire very easily when you barbeque so be careful while you cook.
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Gyutan (BBQ Beef Tongue)
Ingredients
- ¼ lb beef tongue slices (you can buy it in a Japanese supermarket)
For the Seasonings
- 1 Tbsp yuzu kosho (Japanese citrus chili paste)
- 1 Tbsp soy sauce
- ½ Tbsp sake
- ½ Tbsp toasted sesame oil
- ½ tsp yuzu juice (extract) (or lemon juice)
- freshly ground black pepper
- ⅛ onion (optional)
Instructions
- Gather all the ingredients.
- Combine all the seasonings in a small bowl: 1 Tbsp yuzu kosho (Japanese citrus chili paste), 1 Tbsp soy sauce, ½ Tbsp sake, ½ Tbsp toasted sesame oil, ½ tsp yuzu juice (extract), and freshly ground black pepper. Whisk it together.
- Spread a bit of the seasoning sauce on the bottom of a shallow container like a baking dish.
- Spread ¼ lb beef tongue slices in a single layer (try not to overlap the slices). Then, pour the rest of the sauce on top of the meat.
- If you‘d like, you can grate ⅛ onion on top of the tongue slices. Marinate the beef tongue for at least 30 minutes. Do not over-marinate since the meat will become too salty.
- Start the grill, preferably over charcoal.
- Grill on high heat for 1–2 minutes.
- Flip the meat and cook for another 1–2 minutes. Serve immediately with a small amount of yuzu kosho on the side.
To Store
- You can keep the leftovers in an airtight container and store in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.
Hi Nami, what can I substitute Yuzu Kosho with? Thank you
Hi rantje, Yuzu Kosho is a fermented paste made from chili peppers, yuzu peel, and salt, so we recommend using lemon zest and salt as a substitute. If you would like, you can add grind green chili peppers for an extra kick. We hope this helps!
Hi Nami, first of all I would like to say that your website is awesome and I am now trying to follow your recipes on my daily cooking. My husband and I really love the beef tongue whenever we go to japanese restaurant. I really hope that I can cook it myself. However, can i cook it (using the grill setting) in oven instead? Also, if i want to use the traditional way for marinating (which is salt), is it really salt only? If not, please advise the ingredients. thank you! 🙂
Hi Dawnie! Thank you so much for your kind feedback on my website. I’m so happy to hear you’ve been cooking recipes from the site! Thank you! You can use broiler to cook the tongue, but be sure to stay around and turn over before you overcook it. Yes, salt, lemon, and minced onion. 🙂
Hi Nami, how is the tongue prepared before it is sliced? I love lengua tacos and that is simmered for hours, then skinned and cut up. Is this prepared similarly? I ask because I’m not sure if I would be able to find presliced tongue in my area but whole tongue is readily available. Thanks 🙂
Hi Windell! It’s sliced very thinly and sold raw in Japanese grocery stores. We always grill the thinly sliced tongue and enjoy it with lemon juice etc. I think you will need to freeze for 1-2 hours and cut thinly slice as it’s impossible to cut thin when it’s raw at room temperature/cool. 🙂
Never saw it prepared that way. As a Jew, I grew up eating it boiled and sliced and served on rye bread with mustard. Sort of like corned beef.
Hi Shirley! I heard of the boiled beef tongue, but never had a chance to try it, but hope I can try it one day. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Nami,
What is yuzu? And what if I can’t find it here? Can I substitute it with something else?
Can I pan fried gyutan instead or barbecue it?
Thank you.
Hi Leony! Yuzu! Oh this is such a lovely citrus we use in Japan. These days many restaurants use this citrus, even in American or other cuisine. It looks like this:
https://www.justonecookbook.com/pantry_items/yuzu/
Substitute can be lemon or any other citrus but it’s just not the same. Like Meyer lemon has distinct flavor, same thing for yuzu. 🙂
Sure, you can pan fry as long as it’s thinly sliced. 🙂
hello. what if i dont have yuzu kosho? thanks in advance. warm regards from Indonesia.
Hi Eugenia! I know, it’s not easy to find. I wanted to share there is a delicious way to eat beef tongue in Japan, but I am aware that yuzu kosho is hard to find and hard to make it from scratch without the ingredients…. 🙂
gyutan , yakisuge wa motto oishi.. Yakiniku itara ichiban tanomo wa gyutan desu..
Konnichiwa Jane! Soudesu ne! Watashino shujin wa gyutan daisuki desu. 🙂
My children and I got a kick out of bbq beef tongue!! I am so excited I have found your site. I t will be fun to educate mt children on food from Japan.
Thank you Angie! I try to make it as simple and easy, but still keep it authentic as possible. Hope you and your children enjoy trying some homemade Japanese food!
The tongue looks so delicious! I think I would have to check out some Korean market for that specialty “meat”. Any suggestions for a substitute? Yakiniku beef or pork?
Yes, any meat/seafood will work with this recipe, if you like yuzu kosho flavor. 🙂