Making organ burgers page

[heatseeker]

I have liver about once a week, but my local HEB has all kinds of awesome organ meats, like heart, kidney, tongue, and other stuff, super cheap, and I feel I should be taking advantage of that. So, I want to start making my own burger patties with organ meat mixed in.

First: Can I do this with a food processor? I don't have a meat grinder or anything.
Second: Anyone have any experience mixing combos of organ meats and regular meat for burgers? What kinds of ratios and combos should I be aiming for?

[Ayla2010]

Can your butcher do it for you?

Id like to know about the second question too, but I will ask my butcher today, as I want him to grind up some organ meat with beef or lamb, so I can make patties or meatballs for my family. I really really need us to start getting in some organs some how.

[seaweed]

i have a mincer on my juicer which isnt exactly heavy duty and that works so i am sure a food processor would be fine. maybe dice it all up a bit first. i think the ratios depend on your tastes. i put lumps of heart in. you wouldnt notice that at all as heart is very meat-like in flavour. liver is stronger flavoured so you would notice that. tongue is real yummy. almost meat like too so i doubt you would notice that too much. kidneys are also strong flavoured. i have made chilli with heart and mince. ratio was prob 1/3rd heart. i have also made scotch eggs with venison heart and venison mince, plus meatza and also kitfo with the same batch. similar ratio of about 1/3rd heart. and that ratio was only as i wanted to save most of the heart to eat on its own.

[Cryptocode]

I have liver about once a week, but my local HEB has all kinds of awesome organ meats, like heart, kidney, tongue, and other stuff, super cheap, and I feel I should be taking advantage of that. So, I want to start making my own burger patties with organ meat mixed in.

First: Can I do this with a food processor? I don't have a meat grinder or anything.
Second: Anyone have any experience mixing combos of organ meats and regular meat for burgers? What kinds of ratios and combos should I be aiming for?

I don't think you can do it with a food processor, but I bet you can buy an old-fashiioned hand meat grinder on ebay. I did a few years ago for a friend. You feed in a small handful of lean meat and a smaller handful of pure fat. It's really easy, and a very useful tool that few people want.

However, why are you making hamburger of organ meat. It's delicious as it is. Take tongue. You boil it. Then the outer skin just lifts off very easily and it looks like any other meat. Slice it cross-wise and it's delicious, very tender with a mild beef taste.

[heatseeker]

Mostly it's for convenience, partly it's because I want to make raw patties for my dogs with the same method, and a teensy bit of it is because I've tried preparing organ meats before, and the only one that doesn't squick me right out texture-wise is liver. Otherwise I feel like Khaleesi, chewing on a heart. Too gross. BUT I have nothing against the flavor and still want to eat it, so ground up in burgers seems like a good choice.

[Neckhammer]

I wouldn't try a food processor with the liver.... it tends to damn near liquify (actually this is good for sneaking a bit into smoothies). A hand grinder may work. I don't have one so I mince it with a knife and worked it into burger patties for my kids to hide it. But, for real the liver smoothie works so much better and with less fuss so I don't bother with the burger bit anymore. That and we added a fermented cod liver oil regimen for the kids so no worries.

[Ayla2010]

Mostly it's for convenience, partly it's because I want to make raw patties for my dogs with the same method, and a teensy bit of it is because I've tried preparing organ meats before, and the only one that doesn't squick me right out texture-wise is liver. Otherwise I feel like Khaleesi, chewing on a heart. Too gross. BUT I have nothing against the flavor and still want to eat it, so ground up in burgers seems like a good choice.

what about the butcher you buy the meat from?
My butcher also makes up my cats mix too.

[Tribal Rob]

I put some liver in my blender and blitz it for a few seconds then mixed it in with ground beef (2:1 ratio of beef to liver) tasted just fine as burger. Was a bit gooey mixing it up by hand, but I'm ok with that, however the bits were a bit random in size.

[Cryptocode]

Here's a meat grinder for 19.99, they work great!
Union Mfg Food and Meat Chopper 1551 Mfg in Conn | eBay

[Greenbeast]

i've been wanting to get into organ meats too but wasn't sure how i'#d be with some of them. making burgers out of them sounds like a great idea and i have a grinder for my food mixer