Tag Archives: organs

Liver and Onions

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liver-onions-oysters

Here is a breakfast of liver and onions cooked in pastured lard. The oysters were lightly cooked in pastured butter. This breakfast packs a powerful nutritional punch and costs about $2.00 a plate. There is no reason eating nourishing traditional foods has to cost a fortune.

Liver and onions was once a common breakfast. Your grandparents would have eaten it once or twice a week, if they could get it. Now, many people are frightened by eating organ meats. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard someone say: “Aren’t those dangerous? Aren’t organs full of toxins?”Of course, I am thinking about liver from an animal that has lived its whole life on pasture and has never required medication. I don’t think I would like to eat the liver from an animal that had spent its whole life in a confinement operation, heavily medicated just to survive its very stressful, short life.

I would like to share my favorite liver and onions recipe. Please do not be frightened by organ meats. Just make sure the liver you are enjoying is from an animal that has lived a good life on pasture, and did not spend its last days gorging on grains. Organs are very nourishing foods. In fact, organs are superfoods. The secret to great liver is not to over cook.

1c calf liver, sliced thinly
1 large organic onion, cut in half, sliced thinly
2-3T organic butter
large pinch of sea salt
Slice the calf liver into thin 1/3 inch slices. Set aside for later. Saute in a cast iron pan the thinly sliced onions and sea salt in some of the butter until the onions are golden brown. Place the sauted onions on the serving plate and cover. Don’t let the cast iron pan get cold. Melt the remaining butter over medium high heat. Quickly put the slices of liver on the hot pan in one layer. As quickly as you can turn the liver slices over. Remove the liver slices from the pan onto the serving dish. Be quick about it. Cooking for 10 seconds a side is about right. The liver should be pink in the middle. Eat each piece of liver with the browned onions. Add a bit more sea salt if needed.

If you are feeling more adventurous after enjoying liver, please read Gourmet Organ Meat Recipes from the Weston A Price Foundation.

liver-and-onions

This is my breakfast of beef liver with buttered onions. The side dish is garden fresh zucchini sauted in butter and garlic, topped with Gort's raw gouda.

Slaughtering Lamb & Hogs

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pigs-head

Here are two pigs heads, one partly skinned. Keep everything from the animal even when you aren't sure what to do with it. Learn how to make head cheese or split a head with an axe and fed it to laying hens in winter. This helps the hens produce better eggs. Use everything.

Early in December we slaughtered one lamb and two hogs. The lamb came from Jocko Creek Ranch. The hogs originally came from Ranfurly Farm but we fed the hogs up ourselves. Our neighbor Joe came over to help Shaen slaughter and process the carcasses. The men killed, bled, skinned and halved the carcasses. Shaen had a chance to use a butcher’s bone saw. He was able to cut each carcass in half very quickly. The carcasses will hang for a few days before cutting, wrapping and freezing.

I was in the kitchen and helped with cleaning and wrapping of the organs and heads. I washed the tripe over and over again. Most of my time was spent cleaning hair roots out of the hog fat. I have never eaten or made head cheese or tripe. I have looked over the books The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating and Beyond Nose to Tail by Fergus Henderson and wondered when I would have a chance to try some of the more unusual recipes.

We didn’t use everything. It is possible to make sausage casing from the intestines but we decided it was just too much work. Joe took the intestines home for processing. I was very sad not to be processing the skin of the lamb into a hide, but we don’t know anyone with tanning experience. I have been doing some research and may give it a try anyway. We gave the remains of the digestive system to the chickens. Shaen could not believe how fast the pile disappeared. The chickens considered the offal very good eating. We also saved certain organs, glands and scraps for pet food. Meadows, our cat, gorged herself on scraps during the slaughtering process. She then disappeared for a night and day to sleep off her feast.

Three days later, everyone got back together to cut and wrap the carcasses. Shaen turned on one of our large deep freezers which has a chill-down setting. This feature is found on some very large older freezers and was originally used by hunters wanting to quickly chill-down their kill. Joe brought his meat cutting band saw, which made short work of cutting up the carcasses. Shaen and Chris worked on the wrapping and labeling table. The men finished the cutting, wrapping and clean-up in about three hours.