Actually cooking organ meats week after week
I’ve heard Sally Fallon Morrell say that tongue is one of the four prized fatty organ meats – along with liver, brains and marrow. As it turn out, it isn’t an organ at all… It’s actually a muscle, just one that happens to be high in good fats and cholesterol. Along those lines, it’s easy to eat, without the jiggly texture of some other organs, but also more tender than all other muscle meats….
Eating liver is the best way to get enough iron and avoid anemia. For me, the anti-fatigue factor of sufficient iron is the only way to survive a busy schedule! A large batch of Chicken Liver Mousse might be the easiest way to include it in your diet.
There’s a popular 1950s research paper touting the anti-fatigue factor in liver. In the experiment, there are three groups of mice with a varied diet. The first group ate a standard diet, the second had a B-vitamin supplement, and the third had a liver powder supplement. After several weeks, they were placed in cold water to swim. The first and second groups swam for 13.3 and 13.4 minutes, respectively. The final group, with the liver supplement, swam for over two hours. The researchers were so taken by these anti-fatigue rats, that they were ultimately released…
Long-simmered and tender Tripe with White Beans is inspired by Marcella Hazan’s Honeycomb Tripe with Parmesan Cheese. I had previously processed and prepared the tripe with vinegar and salt, as I describe here. The remaining ingredients are nearly all pantry staples.
Hazan describes tripe in such an appealing way. “At one time tripe was so popular that restaurants used to specialize in it, preparing it in a score or more of of different ways. One of the reasons it has becomes such a rare item may be that people no longer know how to prepare it. When you know how to go about it, tripe rewards you with tenderness so succulent, and a fragrance so appetizing, that more expensive cuts of meat cannot match.”…
I’ve cooked Pozole a few times, and Menudo dozens of times, but just recently realized how similar they are. In short, you’ve got a rich broth, flavored with toasted chiles, topped with some fresh condiments. Where Pozole uses the pigs head for the rich broth (and hominy), Menudo uses marrow, trotters, and tripe. …
Sweetbreads are so simple and elegant, they will pick up the flavors of anything you cook with them. Leave it to Marcella Hazan to pair with butter and sweet peas; this recipe is adapted from her original in Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking.
Sweetbreads with tomatoes and peas is truly a summer dish – when fresh shelled peas and tomatoes are weighing down my bags at the farmer’s market. But somehow, on it’s half birthday, I realized that it was a bit Christmas-y, too! And besides, despite my devotion to eating seasonally, canned tomatoes and frozen peas are pretty universal in our home.
I think that this dish is perfect with rice and a salad. In the summer, use the rice as a vehicle for broth. In the winter, a steaming cup to precede your meal would be lovely. Happy holidays!…
Deviled Kidneys with Leftover Brussel Sprouts and Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Fergus Henderson has a recipe for Deviled Kidneys in his book, The Whole Beast. He introduces it as “The perfect breakfast on your birthday, with a glass of Black Velvet (half Guiness and half Champagne).” If this dish is good enough for a birthday breakfast, it was definitely something we needed to try. And wait, did that say breakfast? Should we be eating kidney for breakfast?! Yes, we should. See, it says ‘breakfast’ right there in the book.
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It wasn’t always this way. In the beginning, I had to force myself to finish a serving of liver. Week after week, I’d lovingly prepare this Italian Liver Piccata (adapted from Marcella Hazan in Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking), if not with some trepidation. Then I would serve it with confidence – if not a ‘fake it til you make it’ kind of confidence – to my family.
I had learned that organ meats are the foundation of a healthful diet, with liver being the most important. And I wanted a healthy family. But I didn’t grow up eating organ meats, and my mom had not said kind things about her own experience. Yet, my 100-year old grandmother (my best barometer of ‘food’ and food quality) served liver every week and still loves it. I knew it was the best way to fortify myself and my family; I had to get on board.
Here’s how it would go down:
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Even though I have a savory palate and wouldn’t mind soup most mornings for breakfast (especially through winter), the kids don’t love that idea. In fact, I would say that they don’t even like that idea. Unless, of course, it is menudo, Mexican tripe soup, as adapted from Rick Bayless in Authentic Mexican Cooking – affectionately known around our place as ‘cow’s stomach soup.’
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On Thursday nights we eat raw meat at home. “Hmm,” you might be thinking. It might sound exotic, or a bit scary, but it’s really no big thing. Steak tartar, carpaccio, a lot of ceviche in the summer. A pretty (ok, very) rare steak. “Oh right…” Maybe it’s not something you would usually eat, but not so strange. As it turns out, the kids are like little wild animals around this stuff. If you don’t move quick, you won’t get any. I think there is something to be said for that.
I never realized that Vietnamese beef pho was in this category, but it was a happy discovery.
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