I didn’t start with a strategy of hiding organ meats. Once I learned about the importance of including them in a diverse and nourishing diet, I served them front and center, without apology. Regardless, we incorporate them into all sort of foods now. Sometimes ingredients come up and sometimes they don’t. Whether you do intend to reveal your (secret) ingredients or not, Savory Mushroom Bolognese with Ground Organs is a great place to start!
So what is so important about organ meats?
Weston A Price
I’ve written about Weston A Price before. Quick recap: he was flummoxed by the cause of dental decay (he was a dentist), but opted not to study his patients. Instead, he sought and found people in pristine health with beautiful teeth and documented what they were doing instead. He compared the nutritional aspects of their diets and practices to modern norms (of the 1930s).
After incorporating his findings, he was able to reverse tooth decay in his patients. He was a pioneer of his time and the timing of his work was fortuitous. He accessed isolated peoples eating native diets that would soon have infrastructure connections. Moreover, he could compare isolated members of these racial groups with those that had left and recently adopted a modern diet. This is significant for weighing nutrition versus genetics. Take a few weeks and read Nutrition and Physical Degeneration if you want to learn more. Well worth it.
The benefits of organ meats: fat-soluble vitamins
Or don’t. Assuming you might not have time, here’s a salient, if not lengthy, quote from the Prologue (pg. xvi) that summarizes Price’s findings. (Bold emphasis my own.)
Price analyzed the primitive diets and found that they all contained at least four times the quantity of minerals and water-soluble vitamins of the American diet of his day. Even more startling was the discovery that these diets contained at least TEN times the amount of fat-soluble vitamins found in animal fats, including vitamin A, vitamin D and the “Price Factor” or “Activator X,” discovered by Dr. Price.
Price considered these fat-soluble vitamins to be the key component of healthy diets. He called these nutrients “activators” or “catalysts,” upon which the assimilation of all the other nutrients in our food – protein, minerals, and water-soluble vitamins depends. ‘It is possible to starve for minerals that are abundant in the foods eaten because they cannot be utilized without an adequate quantity of the fat-soluble activators,’ wrote Price. ‘The amounts [of nutrients] utilized depends directly on the presence of other substances, particularly the fat-soluble vitamins…’
The foods that supplied the vital fat-soluble activators included butterfat, marine oils, organ meats, fish and shellfish, eggs, and animal tallows – most of which our modern pundits of diet and nutrition have unfairly condemned as unhealthful.
Bolognese with Ground Organs
Whether you want to hide the organs or not, include them in your diet. Moreover, savor the extra lard or butter used to start the sauce. We need fat to absorb the fat-soluble vitamins. And we need fat-soluble vitamins to absorb the water-soluble vitamins and minerals. What tastes best also serves you well.
If you can’t find ground organs, make your own! Chill them in the freezer for a few minutes, then pulse in a food processor until they resemble ground beef. If necessary, portion them out and freeze in small packages. You can start adding them to all your ground beef dishes, just a little at a time.
If you are new to organs, half the quantity in this recipe to get started. Start with liver since it’s the most bang for your buck in terms of nutrition. Or grind up any organ that may be languishing in your freezer (with good intentions). We used liver and kidney here, but any meaty organ will do! With a small quantity to start, you (or your kids) might not even notice them!
Augment your own Bolognese recipe. Or modify mine. I love the savory mix of mushrooms in a sauce like this, but skip it for a traditional mirepoix (onion-carrot-celery) if you prefer.
In the meantime, we are pretty used to organs around here. I actually used this recipe to hide a few cups of broth (cooked down into the sauce) that were downright refused at lunch one day. (You never know what they will or won’t eat on any given day!) But she loves meat and organs, and ate several servings of Savory Mushroom Bolognese with Ground Organs at dinner, broth included. 🙂
Savory Mushroom Bolognese with Ground Organs
Notes
Most of your cook time will be an hour of unsupervised simmering at the end.
If your organs are not already ground, put them in the freezer for 10-15 minutes to allow them to firm up. Cut into 1 inch cubes and optionally, return to the freezer for 5 minutes if they have started to get soft. Add liver, kidney and heart chunks to food processor and pulse for 1 second, 10-15 times (completely pausing in between pulses) until organs are the size of your ground beef. If you notice that your organs are becoming soupy - stop pulsing early. If they are still in large pieces, pulse a few more times.
Ingredients
- 4.5 T lard
- 1.5 lbs mixed mushrooms (cremini, shitake, oyster), chopped into 1/2" squares
- 1 t oregano
- salt
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1/2 lb (ground) organs: liver, kidney, and/or heart
- 2 T tomato paste
- 2 28 oz can diced tomatoes
- 2 c (gelatinous) chicken broth
- 1/4 cup basil leaves diced, plus more for garnish
- raw parmesan (or raw butter or olive oil) for garnish (optional)
- spaghetti, gluten-free pasta, or zucchini spirals
Instructions
- Add lard to large pot on medium-low heat. When melted, add mushrooms, oregano and 1.5 teaspoons salt. Stir well and cover the pot for 8 minutes while the mushrooms steam. After 8 minutes, remove the lid, increase heat to medium-high and cook off the water from the mushrooms.
- Add ground beef and ground organs, along with 2 more teaspoons salt. Mix well while this cooks for about 5-8 minutes. When mostly cooked, add tomato paste and stir well. Add tomatoes and chicken broth and turn heat to high. Stir occasionally as this comes to a boil. Then reduce heat to low and let simmer for an hour while flavors get to know each other and sauce thickens.
- Meanwhile, prepare your noodles of choice. Before serving, mix chopped basil leaves into bolognese. Garnish dish with additional basil and optional parmesan.
This sounds so good! Stumbled across your site trying to find recipes for liver and am pleasantly surprised to see you have recipes for so many other organs (including brains, which I currently have in my freezer). Also love the prep advice. Super excited to learn ways to include more offal on a consistent basis. Thanks so much! 😊
@ShivaD thanks! Enjoy!!
Hi Janine,
You have a beautifully art-directed and written vision here. Bravo!
Keep up the great work!
-Dom
Hi Janine! Thank you sooooooooo much!! You have no idea how much you’re helping me get started with organ meats.
Hi Annie, Yay! Congrats!! and thank you!!
I’m making this now, and it smells great! Do we put the lid back on as it simmers during the last hour? Thanks!
Hi Annie, Answer depends on how thick you like your sauce! If it gets too dry, definitely add a little broth or water and yes, keep the lid on for the remaining time. Else, I use the simmer to get it down to the consistency we like. Great job, Annie, feeding your family well! It always feels so good to me to eat and serve delicious food that you know is so nourishing! Cheers!!