Name: Kidneys with Hazelnut Butter Sauce
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 35 min
Yield: 4
Ingredients: 1 beef kidney; 1 lemon; 1 t salt; 1/4 cup roasted or http://thenourishingcook.com/crispy-hazelnuts/; 4 oz butter; 1 T parsley, chopped

Jump to recipe

Kidneys with Hazelnut Butter Sauce

This post is a continuation from last week, when I encouraged readers to choose pastured, grass-finished animals. And includes a recipe for Kidneys with Hazelnut Butter Sauce. It’s a simple recipe – the crispy, buttery nuts pair well with the fleshy kidneys. Yet, while I served these this week, the Kidneys with Hazelnut Butter are almost an afterthought compared to my musings.

I mention the importance of pastured, grass-fed, grass-finished meats often. It’s important for pursuing nutrient-density, improving store-bought pork rinds, purchasing brains, or eating raw meats such as carpaccio, heart tartare, or ground beef.

That said, I want to encourage you to continue to maintain a dialogue with your farmers. Yes, even the ones, or especially the ones, that really are doing everything right.

Terroir

So I confess that sourdough bread actually inspired this post.

Last week I was at the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market as part of Hilary Boynton’s Lunch Leader Academy and we were talking with Farmer Larry Kandarian. His clean soil hasn’t been tilled in 20 years. He’s now got fantastic water retention and a variety of flavorful grains.

And then Guy Frankel stepped in to help us sample some of these grains. He delighted our small crowd with three of his fresh-milled, long-ferment sourdough wonders. He shared a rye and white wheat with teff seeds and psyllium husks; a nixtamilized peruvian maize, purple barley flour and red wheat; and finally a red wheat and emmer combination.

The final sampling of sourdough was pure delight. The emmer grew next to a field of fennel, with the adjacent emmer and fennel pollens exchanged over the season. And you could, without any uncertainty, absolutely taste the fennel in the bread. Truly a most beautiful use of these grains. Showcasing their terroir.

Unless you consider terroir to be specific to wine, like it’s technical definition:

the complete natural environment in which a particular wine is produced, including factors such as the soil, topography, and climate

However, the sentiment goes well beyond wine. Here, to the grains in Frankel’s sourdough. And no doubt rightfully belonging to pastured animals as well.

Pastured grass-fed animals

People do prefer familiar flavors. And Americans still prefer grain-finished over grass-finished beef. However, grass-finished beef does not necessarily have a consistent taste. So results can be mixed in standard pair-offs. Indeed, what an animal eats in the last weeks of life does affect the flavor. And it also affects the nutrient-density of the meat and fat.

Quoting Fred Provenza, again,

Among many other phytochemicals, flavonoids, carotenoids, and terpenoids in herbivore diets become part of the flavor of meat and fat. That is illustrated when researchers add garlic, thyme, essential oils from juniper, essential oils from rosemary or clove, or tannins to the diets of lambs and calves – they all improve the flavor and biochemical richness of the meat.

That said, I want to encourage you to learn more about your grass-finished meat. Which species of grasses are on offer in their buffet? What do your farmers notice about the grazing patterns of their animals? Do they use special provisions or have patterns on the land for finishing their animals?

Native species

And back to the species in the buffet… are they native perennials?

Because this last question brings me to a final point. From an ecological perspective, there are important relationships between all things local.

I love talking about how regenerative agriculture sequesters carbon. While prairie grasses might seem boring, their roots can be 16 feet long or more. Carbon is stored in the often-underappreciated underground root systems of perennial plants. The hoof-prints and manure of herbivores improves the soil microbiome and increases topsoil. The health of the soil, in turn, nutures the grasses.

Meanwhile, this makes the soil more absorbent – more like a thick forest floor with each year. Flooding is reduced, the watershed is more stable.

But there is something even larger than that, I believe, as described by Doug Tallamy in his book Bringing Nature Home. Native species “support diverse pollinator species and complex food webs.” Farmer Harry Carr of Mint Creek Farm recommended this book to me years ago and it’s an important read for anyone with a backyard, let alone responsibility for a small prairie! From Tallamy’s website,

Local extinction is rampant and global extinction accelerating. This is a growing problem for humanity because it is the plants and animals around us that produce the life support we all depend on…. Because nearly 85% of the U.S. is privately owned, our private properties are an opportunity for long-term conservation if we design them to meet the needs of the life around us… Choosing the best plants for your area is the key to success.

Talk to your farmer!

So ask your grassfed-farmer about the diversity of their land. Ask them how they finish their animals and how that may have evolved over time. Do you notice flavor differences between different grass-finished farmers in your region?

Ask your farmer if the grasses on their land are native to the region. Refer them to Tallamy’s web resources and books to find native species for every region. Ask if the mix of annuals to perennials (favoring perennials) has changed or could change under their care?

And then iterate back to see how that might influence the flavor of the meat! 😉

Kidneys in Hazelnut Butter Sauce

This is a simple recipe from Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions cookbook. Organs are a concentrated source of nutrients. And yes, I have noticed flavor differences in seasons and across farms in the organs we often eat.

So continue the dialogue with your local farmers, embrace the terroir of the animals available, and enjoy simple, delicious preparations to truly nourish your family.