There are all kinds of ideas about beef, particularly steak. I think about herb butter or Montreal seasoning to barbeque rubs. One theory that I subscribe to is Samin Nosrat’s ‘salt early, earlier is better’. But, the one tried and true recipe I use is salt, pepper and granulated garlic.

It’s freezer prep time. Last weekend, my neighbors gave me eight pounds of bear meat. They are planning to need room soon. I have been moving this beef head around for almost two years, that is way too long. There was a small amount of freezer burn that I trimmed off. The truth is, that in a month or two, I will probably have another head to store. So, I decided to make this over labor day weekend.

If I had a choice, I probably would skip the head altogether. But, it is our duty as parents and people to carry out cultural traditions and this is one that my wife enjoys. I begrudgingly pick-up the head, clean it and store it until such time that I cook it and we eat tacos. My preference by far and away is the tongue over the cheeks, but I can deal with it once every couple of years.

I was watching some videos recently to see if there were other preparations that I might like better. When I was talking about some of the things I learned, my wife forcefully said no. “Only salt, pepper and garlic that is the way that my grandparents did it.” So, that is what I did. I just rub the outside and pretend that you can get close enough to such a large volume of meat.

This is probably my fifth or six one that I have done. It is hard to remember everything when you only do it once every couple of years. That being said, I have made a lot of different mistakes over the years. The first one is make sure the head is clean. I spend a lot of up front time trying to get the grass out of the mouth and throat. I only made that mistake once.

The second one is there is a lot of mass there. Make sure there is plenty of defrost time. This year, I took it out of the freezer on Wednesday and cooked it on Saturday, but there was still ice along the bottom. Hence, cooking took much longer and still there were parts that were not as done as they should be.

Since the whole head contains a lot of gristle, the preferred method is low and slow. It is hard to do that in eight hours when it is still frozen. Also, most preparations include a braising component. I modified it by chunking up the meat and adding water to the skillet after it was 80% cooked. An hour of extra cooking did a lot to homogenize things but kind of ruins the romanticism of unwrapping the cooked head.

I wish that I had thought of taking pictures of the final product. Something about waiting three extra hours to eat and having people waiting on me made me to forget to do what I wanted. The tacos are simple, corn tortillas, onion, cilantro and the salsa of your choice. Don’t forget to taste the meat for salt before serving.

End Your Programming Routine: As I said, this is my go to preparation for beef. It is pretty much the only thing I do for steak. You can save all the Cajun seasoning, seasoning salt and all that stuff for chicken. Keep it simple for the best results.