My Offal Week :) page 2

[noodletoy]

last summer, i got badly anemic and vowed to add in more liver. i'd always had it on charcuterie plates, but never as a serious home-food. now i eat chicken liver pate several times a week. i know it freezes super-well, lol, dunno why i keep making such small batches! good reminder.

we've also been eating lots of tongue and heart. very cheap lean protein from ruminants, vs. the other muscle meats.

added bone broth in january and have that more days than not, with some greens and eggs mixed in as a meal.

YES, i do feel a dramatic improvement to my health. it's funny, i was just having a bit of hindsight about all this. after giving up grains 3 years ago, i felt pretty good. no more colds, coughs, mucous, etc. was eating lots more veggies, more animal protein.

then my health went kaplooey with hormones. tried some cw-intervention which was a DISASTER. cut that shit out almost 2 months ago. along wth the offal and broth, as well as a steady dose of magnesium, vitamin d3 and k2, i feel soooooooo very much better than last year at this same time.

so yeah, it is absolutely because of this type of eating. deficiencies in minerals and vital nutrients are so insidious, and everybody feeling mostly crappy has become "normal". a symptom of aging. according to my doctor, i should feel 1000 times worse. suck it.

what do you guys do with gizzards? have some in the freezer...

[noodletoy]

Liver seems to help my workouts also.

@Paleobird: How does the texture of the pate hold up after being frozen? I though I read somewhere that it wasn't good to do. I've made a big batch of pate before and put it into several small ramekins and sealed the tops with butter. Apparently they will keep in the fridge like this for two weeks.

not she, but as long as the pate is just butter, no cream, it will hold for months in the freezer. cream versions may break apart.

[sbhikes]

"Offal" I had last night was salmon roe. I love salmon roe.

I love to have chicken liver "scrambles" without the eggs. Chicken hearts are very good but the only time I have had them is if you get a little bag of giblets with your chicken and then you only get one heart and it's not often they give you the giblets. If I ever see them in bulk, hell yeah, I'm taking them home.

I have not tried tongue yet. I do not know how to prepare it. I have not tried tripe yet either, but someday I'll try some menudo. Really just heart, oxtails (is that even offal??), liver and roe is the only kind of offal I've ever had.

[sakura_girl]

I love to have chicken liver "scrambles" without the eggs. Chicken hearts are very good but the only time I have had them is if you get a little bag of giblets with your chicken and then you only get one heart and it's not often they give you the giblets. If I ever see them in bulk, hell yeah, I'm taking them home.

You recently posted a thread about going to the Asian market and seeing offal, right? I suggest you look there for chicken hearts, because that's where I get all of mine

[homunculus]

I've been eating liver pretty often lately. Bought lamb heart and beef kindey today, not sure what I'm gonna do with these but I want to eat more offal too.

[vb66]

How did you get over your liver aversion? I gag at beef liver but have managed to down chicken livers (doused in spices, coconut flour, and then fried). Any tips?

[Paleobird]

@Paleobird: How does the texture of the pate hold up after being frozen? I though I read somewhere that it wasn't good to do. I've made a big batch of pate before and put it into several small ramekins and sealed the tops with butter. Apparently they will keep in the fridge like this for two weeks.

I put the pate in little tupperware single serving cups and seal the tops with coconut oil. It will freeze well as long as there is no air contact

[Paleobird]

"Offal" I had last night was salmon roe. I love salmon roe.

I love to have chicken liver "scrambles" without the eggs. Chicken hearts are very good but the only time I have had them is if you get a little bag of giblets with your chicken and then you only get one heart and it's not often they give you the giblets. If I ever see them in bulk, hell yeah, I'm taking them home.

I have not tried tongue yet. I do not know how to prepare it. I have not tried tripe yet either, but someday I'll try some menudo. Really just heart, oxtails (is that even offal??), liver and roe is the only kind of offal I've ever had.

I adore salmon roe. It's like salty bubble wrap that pops in your mouth.
Tongue works really well in the slow cooker with some onions, garlic, herbs and red wine. When it's done you "peel" off the part that has the tastebuds which is kind of the squeem factor for me. (It comes off easy when cooked, impossible raw)

[KerryK]

Regarding the chicken hearts, do y'all trim anything (like grisle or hard fat/veins) or are they go as is?

[lorichka6]

Is the quality of the offal source important? There are always packages of heart, liver, tongue, marrow, etc at the grocery store but from probably less than ideally sourced animals. Probably would be worth a shot to ask at the farmer's market this weekend though.