I’ve stayed up late writing the last few nights, and when hunger hits in the middle of the night in a small town like Corvallis, it can be difficult to find something decent to eat. But there is La Conga (formerly known as Rigoberto’s), and I’m absolutely hooked on their burrito con lengua. Yes, it’s a burrito with beef tongue.

Beef tongue is a common ingredient in real Mexican tacos and burritos. It’s a very tender meat, and the flavor is deep, robust and hearty. If you’ve never tried it, I advise you to get some tongue. If you’d like to try cooking it, the procedure is pretty simple. Put a tongue in a pot with chopped onions and garlic, cover it with water, add salt, and simmer for a few hours until tender. Next, remove the skin from the tongue, chop finely (or roughly if you want to enjoy the texture a bit more), and roll the meat into a burrito or taco with refried beans and your favorite fixings.

If you want to jazz it up a bit, you can add a cinnamon stick or other spices to the simmering pot. Cumin. Dried chiles. Peppercorns. And once the tongue is cooked, skinned and chopped, you could even dare to saute it in oil with chiles and spices to give it a little caramelization and zing. I haven’t found a good butcher in this town yet (I’ve actually been too busy cooking to do much exploring), but I’m growing so fond of the tongue burrito at La Conga that I’m considering purchasing a tongue and playing around with it a little.

And then I’ll probably cook it.

First, I got to work on the filling. I had Dungeness crab and bacon, and decided to bind them with potatoes and walnuts. Of course, merely mashing up two potatoes wasn’t enough for me. No, I actually made a micro-batch of fresh shrimp stock from shells, carrot, onion, celery, parsley, apple cider vinegar and white wine. I simmered the peeled, diced potatoes for 45 minutes so they could take up the subtle sweetness of the shrimp and vegetables, then gave them a rough mash in a mixing bowl. I roasted a few handfuls of walnuts in herb-infused olive oil, chopped them finely and added them to the potatoes. Into this I gave the crab meat and bacon (minced and rendered), then a half cup of Fontina cheese. This was all stirred to a stiff, even consistency and seasoned with just a few pinches of sea salt. I went very easy with the salt, as I wanted the soft flavors of the shrimp stock, potato and walnut to take center stage. Besides, I still have flavor coming from the sauce I’ll need to make. The sauce I’m thinking of for these ravioli has a lot of high-end zing to it, so keeping the ravioli on the down-low, subtle side of the spectrum seems wise.

Well, I kneaded flour and eggs, rolled the dough into sheets, scooped balls of filling thereupon, covered the assembly with another sheet of dough, then sealed and cut. Ravioli aren’t such a big deal, they’re just time-consuming and involved. Making them is the kind of task I like to settle into and enjoy with some wine and good company if I’m at home. But if you’re going to make 20, you may as well make 200. The assembly is nothing once you get your rhythm. It’s the prep that’s a pain.