I have grown to enjoy trying new food.  I have my wife to thank for introducing me to a wide range of foods that I never really ate before her encouragement.  From my first experience having Thai food to the joy of sushi, I owe it to her.  The exploration continues though, as I go on to cook things we’ve never had before.

Offal, if you’ve never had it, refers to the magical “fifth quarter” of the animal, the stuff that falls off (get it, off-fall?) when you cut it open.  This also includes the extremities, like feet and ears.  Today we’re going to look at some organs and a tissue.  For you vegetarians and squeamish people (and because I don’t have any), I’ll spare you the before pictures.

The most common offal available is liver.  It’s available in many forms, from the grandiose foie gras to buck-a-pound pre-packaged chicken livers.  You may have had pâté, which usually includes the liver of some animal.  My friend, Laurence, makes a mean pork liver pâté studded with tongue.  The flavor and texture is one I find so enjoyable.  Some people, however, turn their noses at it because “it looks like cat food.”  Good… more for us.  Beef liver is available, and is commonly served overcooked and doused with onions to try to cover up the fact that it’s overcooked liver.

You can sometimes find tongue, usually beef tongue, especially if you have ethnic markets available to you.  Americans have tended toward the less-worked, less-flavorful, more expensive parts of the animal, but many in the world have held on to traditional cuts.  I’ve had beef tongue a few times, and none of them were spectacular.  It was beefy, but not terribly flavorful.  It needs to be cooked a long time to make it tender, but in the process it seemed to have lost much of its character.  I recommend you try it… find a good taquería and order one.  If you don’t like it, close your eyes, dump some salsa on it, and pretend it’s actually tenderloin.

Now for the serious stuff, the kind of thing you can’t find at a typical grocery store.  The first is a specialty sausage made with a mix of delicious piggy parts, some spices, some fruit, and blood.  The traditional blood sausage, or boudin noir, is made with caramelized apples and cognac (or calvados), but the Caribbean-inspired riff that I tried (courtesy of Larbo’s skilled manipulation) had raisins soaked in rum.

Since I forgot that it had raisins instead of apples, I stayed true to traditional accompaniments and made simple baked (in butter) apples and crisp-fried (in schmaltz) potatoes, as inspired by the mentions on this page about boudin noir.  As recommended by Larbo, I sizzled the sausages in a skillet until heated through and served them sliced open.  The sausage mixture inside was almost creamy, with a slight metallic hint (blood does have a good amount of iron) in the aftertaste.  The allspice came through as a pleasant warm spice accompaniment to the sausage, and despite the raisin/apple difference, it went very well with the baked apples.

If you learn how to cook potatoes one way, learn how to cook sliced potatoes in a flavorful fat (like lard, goose, or chicken fat) until they are nicely browned all over and crunchy.  I added some lightly sautéed onion and garlic and finished with a sprinkle of parsley.  I could have eaten a bowl of those potatoes.

The other offal experience I recently had was with pork kidney.  I’ve seen them at the University meat salesroom a few times, and was always curious what they’d be like.  Last Friday, when my wife was returning from a business trip, I decided to prepare them as a side dish.  As a filtering organ, I knew there would be a much stronger flavor than, say, tripe or tongue, but there was little advice to be found on the web on how to “purge” them of their offensiveness.  I trimmed the meaty outer portions away from the inner glandular portions and gave them a quick rinse with water.

I did read that overcooking was strictly verboten, as they would quickly become disgusting.  I opted to saute them in a bit of butter, then finish with what I gathered is a traditional mustard sauce.  It was simply a bit of whole grain mustard and heavy cream stirred in at the end.  The mustard and cream worked together with the, ahem, unique flavor of the kidneys to make something that really tasted good.  Our 7-year-old tried them first (without knowing what they were) and said the kidney was “really good.”  To her credit, after we told her what it was, she kept on eating it.  I love that girl!

Edited to add (due to a question via Google Buzz): A friend who reads the blog asked me to be a little more descriptive about the flavor of the kidneys.  Here’s what I said: “I’ll be honest… it had a little bit of acidic twang, but the underlying flavor was deeply meaty. The texture was firm but pretty tender. To put it bluntly, kidneys filter pee and you could taste it juuust a little, but it worked well with the acid and fat of the mustard cream sauce.”

Since my wife loves steak, and I’d heard steak and kidney pie has been a hit in the UK for generations, I made a pan-seared steak, some cannellini beans mashed with truffled goat cheese, some kale for greenery, and a parsnip-potato pancake (improvised from a Union Square Cafe cookbook) for crunch.  As a home-coming meal, it was teetering on the edge between extravagant and overwhelming, but we all managed to enjoy it.  I’ll definitely try to learn more about kidneys and prepare them again.  If you can find them, give it a shot.  As a less-desirable organ meat, they are super-cheap and pack a lot of flavor.

If you want to learn more about offal, there are many great resources.  The local meat master, Larbo, of This Little Piggy, has explored everything but the oink.  Famous chefs are becoming more open about offal, as it becomes more available and trendy in times of economic hardship.  One notable chef is Chris Cosentino, who is known for his offal cooking skills.

It’s been a while since my last post, and the main reason is that I was invited to contribute to the local online magazine, Smile Politely. I wrote about our family trip to the Mansfield Mushroom Festival. You can find my story there, cleverly titled (by my editor) “Morel mushroom madness close to home.” Here’s a video of the morel auctioneer:

Meanwhile, tons of pictures and post ideas have backed up. I’m going to review Michael Ruhlman’s new book, Ratio. I have some recipes that I’ve developed from that book, as well as some other cooking experiences to share. I’d love to hear what you want me to write about. Send me an email or leave a comment with your suggestions.

Now, you may have seen my stuffed chicken recipe from a previous post. That same weekend, I made a classic dish that I remember fondly from my childhood. When I was a kid, my mom would get Chicken Kiev from our school’s Market Day sale. Every once in a while, we’d pop one out of the freezer, and after waiting far too long, the crunchy tube of chicken emerged from the oven. These things were amazing–crunchy (even better if it was a little over-done), with an obscene amount of buttery goodness inside. It was best when it didn’t leak out, so you could sop it up with whatever else you had on your plate.

Chicken Kiev

It’s a classic dish, so there are plenty of recipes out there for it. I’m sure the dish of my childhood was made with processed, mechanically re-formed meat. Don’t get me wrong, it was still delicious, but this is a slightly more natural version.

Compound butter

• 1 stick (or 8T or 4 oz.) butter, slightly softened
• 0-2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1/4 c fresh parsley, chopped
• 1t salt (less if using salted butter)

Breading & frying

• 4 chicken breasts, butterflied and pounded flat
• 2 eggs
• 2T water
• 2 c panko breadcrumbs (regular breadcrumbs are fine)
• salt and pepper, to taste
• peanut or vegetable oil, for shallow frying

1. Put all the compound butter ingredients in a food processor and pulse until well blended.
2. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm.
3. Beat eggs, water, and salt and pepper, to taste, in a shallow dish.
4. In another shallow dish, season panko with salt and pepper.
5. Lay one chicken breast flat, put 2T of the compound butter on it in a log shape.
6. Wrap the breast around the butter, enclosing it completely.
7. Dip the chicken in the eggs, to coat, then roll in the breadcrumbs to coat. Repeat once more.
8. Repeat with the rest of the chicken.
9. Heat 1/2 – 1″ of oil in a skillet over medium heat to around 375 deg F.
10. Carefully put chicken in the pan, avoid overcrowding.
11. Cook 4-5 minutes a side, or until internal temperature is over 165 deg F.

I served it with some sauteed kale that I had also picked up at the Prairie Fruits Farm sale. Sure, you could probably bake these to make them a little healthier, but you do realize that they’re filled with butter, right? Speaking of which, compound butters are great for many purposes. I had extra from making this and tossed it in with some steamed potatoes. Yum.