Liver

Pâté en Croûte with ground liver and pork in a brioche dough

March 14, 2019 By Janine Farzin 1 Comment

Pate en Croute served with mustard, cornichons and clementines

What if you could cook your meat in it’s own little oven?! In medieval times, meat was prepared with nuts and dried fruit, protected with a crust and placed directly into the hearth. Eventually, the dough was improved for consumption. And today, Pâté en Croûte is having a revival.

Thanks to McCullough at the Chicago Meat Collective for teaching me how to make this last October. It’s a bit of a labor of love, but I’ve been having so much fun with it! An intricate recipe leaves plenty of room for innovation. I’m eventually going to have to return her specialty hinged terrine pan though…

The specific details are all down below, but this week we’ll walk through an overview of the recipe itself. …

Liver Ginger Soup – 5 ingredients in 5 minutes – for silky, spicy goodness

January 31, 2019 By Janine Farzin 6 Comments

5 ingredient Liver Ginger Soup

Last post, I described the meat-based homemade baby formula we’ve been making babycakes for the past many months. Baby is thriving and I feel great serving him liver and broth every day. At some point though, I started thinking – hey, why aren’t I making some variation of this for myself?!

Wouldn’t the rest of us benefit from a daily cup of broth and a couple of ounces of liver, too? Hence the inspiration for Liver Ginger Soup. Five ingredients: broth, liver, ginger, salt, and coconut oil. And about five minutes to make. (All I have to spare.) Perfect for a warm pick me up at home or to pack in a thermos on the go….

Homemade baby formula using liver and broth, and thriving

January 24, 2019 By Janine Farzin 19 Comments

Homemade baby formula?!

I know – corporations have got a hold on this market, with great success. But before formula companies, babies survived, even thrived, on alternatives. And they still can.

Wet nurses have largely been replaced by milk banks. Alternately, we can make homemade baby formula.

For sure, mother’s milk is special in ways we probably still don’t even understand. I am not confused about that. But we can use what we do know to make something pretty good.

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Duck liver and anchovies over buttered toast (& how A, D and K2 work together)

November 6, 2018 By Janine Farzin Leave a Comment

Duck season is here, finally bringing prized duck liver. Understanding how the fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, K2) work together explains why we love it so much!

Pastured or wild ducks are known for having some of the highest quantities of vitamin K2 in the western diet – stored in the liver and fat. But the beauty of the high K2 content in the liver is that it’s combined with vitamins A and D as well, making it a true superfood.

How the fat-soluble vitamins work together

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Portuguese-style liver and onions, inspired by my grandma Vovi

August 7, 2018 By Janine Farzin 6 Comments

In honor of my late grandmother, I finally asked my mom how my Vovi used to prepare liver. All she remembers is that Vovi marinated it in red wine with garlic and probably bay leaves and other spices, and cooked it with onions. Classic Portuguese cooking. This is my best approximation.

This past week I traveled back to the bay area to attend my grandmother’s funeral, and have been revisiting my saudades, or memories, of her. It feels to me that a simpler time with fewer conveniences produced heartier people….

Chicken Liver Sauce with Molded Rice and Genetic Predispositions

July 27, 2018 By Janine Farzin Leave a Comment

My friend was recently blaming genetics for fill-in-the-blank disease. “My doctor says it’s genetic; there’s nothing I can do about it.” In this case, it happened to be cardiovascular disease, but I think that it’s a pretty common sentiment.

Yet, there may be many ways to avoid problems, even when your genes predispose you to a specific condition. Weston A Price suggested this was possible with nutrition. Modern science now has an entire field of study (epigenetics) devoted to it.

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Chicken Liver Pâté (or Mousse) with Sausage Seasonings

June 26, 2018 By Janine Farzin 4 Comments

Necessity is the mother of invention. I was looking for a way to use up a nine pound bag of chicken giblets from one of my grass-fed farmers. But, you have to be quick with all those chicken hearts and livers, lest the bacteria get to them first!

In the animal kingdom, most species will hunt out the most nutrient-dense offerings and preferentially eat those first. Traditional peoples knew this. Predators know this. Even hunters and butchers know that innards must be processed and chilled first.

And that is exactly why livers will ‘spoil’ so quickly. It’s just that some other little species (if not your dog or cat given the opportunity) has gotten there first. Just trim off any dark liver spots and carry on as usual….

Blood Meatloaf with Porcini Mushrooms (and Beef, Pork, and Liver)

June 10, 2018 By Janine Farzin 2 Comments

Folding blood into meatloaf

Last night I went to McCullough‘s for a class on aspic and working with blood. But they only sell blood by the gallon, and we needed a scant 1/4 cup for the terrine we were making. It seemed the rest was going unused, so I asked if I could take some home. You know, just for fun.

Among the gems I learned there: blood is a great binder for meat and, in this case, a great substitute for eggs. I happened to be making porcini meatloaf today anyway, was short on eggs, and had a quart of blood in my fridge… why not give it a try!? Blood Meatloaf with Porcini Mushrooms for dinner….

A Healthy Thyroid with Liver and Vegetable Stir-Fry over Rice

March 12, 2018 By Janine Farzin 2 Comments

The more I learn about the human body, the more awe and wonder I have. And we depend on a healthy relationship with the natural world around us. The minerals are right there, on the periodic table of elements, and they are essential for life!

I recently watched a series of lectures by Rhonda Nelson, PhD about thyroid health and I learned so much. The lectures are summarized in this article, but one of the main take-aways was ensuring that you have enough iodine in your diet for healthy thyroid function.

Of course, it’s not just iodine, we also need selenium, iron, zinc, B6, B2, vitamin A… but iodine is the big one. While seafoods are your best bet, this is an organ meat blog (and I don’t have any fresh fish livers on hand), so stick with me here. We’ll adapt Liver and Vegetable Stir-Fry over Rice to give us a rich serving of the minerals we need for a healthy thyroid. …

Benefits of Allicin in Indian-style Liver with Onions and Garlic

March 6, 2018 By Janine Farzin 6 Comments

We recently had a skin infection on two of my munchkins that responded well to a compound within garlic called allicin. Since then, I confess that I’ve been on a bit of a garlic craze! Allicin is responsible for the antimicrobial benefits of garlic. We’ll choose, store and prepare garlic to maximize allicin production and it’s myriad benefits.

I love this recipe for Indian-style liver and onions and indeed it does benefit from the addition of just a bit more garlic. I’ve adapted it from a recipe I found years ago in At Home with Madhur Jaffrey.

Beneficial properties of garlic

The compound allicin is responsible for a wide range of anti-microbial benefits in garlic. It has been shown to be antibacterial, antifungal, antiparasitic, antiviral and even anticancer….

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