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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 14, 2009 15:10:27 GMT
I can't believe Americans in general would be turned off by gizzards. The Popeye's fried chicken chain used to feature them, along with the livers, and they're easy to find in supermarkets.
Wow, Baz ~ liver is one of the cheapest meats I can buy. The lady butcher from whom I buy will always whisper to me which meats are free-range. She is strongly against hormone-enhanced meat. I'm dying for some liver right now, so I can fix it your way with the capers and parsley.
It is funny how many people will happily munch a hot dog or bologna sandwich, but will go eeuuuww over hogshead cheese.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2009 15:56:09 GMT
My dislike of hogshead cheese has to do with the gelatinous texture of it not it's contents.
I love all liver,gizzards I could take or leave. I like sweetbreads,have never had tripe (that I'm aware of).
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Post by auntieannie on Jun 14, 2009 16:52:37 GMT
oooh! sweetbreads! haven't had them in years!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2009 18:19:34 GMT
Bixa, beef liver (or the liver of any other animal) is very cheap in France. Calves' liver is ultra expensive, as Baz says.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 14, 2009 18:50:57 GMT
I like lamb's liver. Yum! When the Greeks kill tiny lambs (snif, snif) for Orthodox Easter, a Greek grocery nearby always has fresh small lamb livers - they are so young that they haven't processed a lot of chemicals, which can be a problem with liver.
And of course, duck livers! (Even if not "foie gras").
bazfaz, you could serve your cousin some "foie au vin".
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Post by Jazz on Jun 17, 2009 0:13:21 GMT
I love chicken and duck livers. My favorite recipe is very simple, a chicken (duck) liver fettucine. With your choice of good pasta, I saute chicken liver, mushrooms, garlic, white wine, cream and chopped green onion, chive or garlic...season with fresh herbs. This, with a green salad and good white wine, is delicious and inexpensive.
Or, I saute them with butter and garlic.
I hate all of the others, but I have not tasted snout. Snout! oh my god...what do you do with a snout?
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 17, 2009 1:48:11 GMT
I never thought of using livers in a fettucine that way! Now I can't wait to get some and try it -- it really sounds delicious.
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Post by hwinpp on Jun 19, 2009 6:28:57 GMT
The day before yesterday I went to have duck steam boat with a couple of friends. We were very disappointed that she'd just had a group of Vietnamese guests and they'd eaten up all the duck internal organs! Leaving us with breast meat, wings and drumsticks. Considered by Khmers to be far inferior... and by Viets apparently.  |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2009 8:26:51 GMT
I like the flavor of duck tongues -- but I don't like all of the little bones in them!
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Post by hwinpp on Jun 19, 2009 8:32:00 GMT
They were gone too.
I'm going there again, hopefully soon. Will take camera.
You sit on wooden platforms, I know you'd like that kind of place, Jack.
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Post by BigIain on Jun 19, 2009 8:52:17 GMT
Kerouac, this should all be in the food abomination gallery surely? ;D
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 19, 2009 15:59:04 GMT
This from a man whose national dish is haggis?!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2009 16:51:05 GMT
Maybe that's why he was forced to leave Scotland.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 19, 2009 17:21:45 GMT
True. And there's that wine vs. beer thing, too. tsk tsk
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Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2009 17:37:30 GMT
Absolutely. I have always heard that the Scots drink only the purest water from the lochs. Of course they make that nasty alcoholic beverage for export; otherwise their children would starve.
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Post by BigIain on Jun 20, 2009 0:49:32 GMT
true, true and er.... true! Bugger off the pair of you!!!  |
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 20, 2009 1:00:58 GMT
But Iain, you're our token favorite Scotsman!
No offal for you, huh? Not even (brave) heart?
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Post by rikita on Jun 28, 2009 20:44:23 GMT
what does offal mean?
i like liver... especially when my dad makes it, he is good at that type of stuff...
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Post by Deleted on Jun 28, 2009 20:47:23 GMT
Offal is basically all of the parts of the animal that are not traditional "meat" -- mostly but not exclusively internal organs.
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Post by imec on Jun 28, 2009 20:49:47 GMT
Or as Anthony Bourdain would say "the Nasty Bits".
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Post by lagatta on Jun 28, 2009 23:02:01 GMT
And then there are duck gizzards, indeed in a salad. I'm eating a similar salad, but had to make do with chicken gizzards (very cheap, from a halal shop, and while not organic their meat is locally reared and butchered and not from a huge chicken farm in the US). But duck gizzards are a lot tastier. The chicken ones are ok, but sort of bland.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 29, 2009 3:40:10 GMT
Duck gizzards?! I've never had duck gizzards. Suddenly my entire past life seems ....... beige.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 29, 2009 4:45:04 GMT
I almost bought duck gizzards the other day, but I ended up choosing the chicken livers instead (hadn't had them for awhile). My Franprix supermarket has vacuum packages of those two items plus chicken gizzards, all of which are meant to be put into salads although they don't send anybody to your place to check if you are sneaking it into pasta, which I do sometimes.
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Post by rikita on Jun 29, 2009 14:22:07 GMT
i see... well i haven't eaten many offals yet, then, except for liver. sometimes had little pieces of kidney or heart in a soup and found that okay. had haggis when i was in scotland and really liked that. oh does blood pudding count too? like that, the german type anyway, not sure how the ones in other countries are...
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Post by lagatta on Jun 29, 2009 15:37:11 GMT
Yes, I'd say blood pudding (boudin, in French) counts, blood not being muscle meat. I have a hard time facing that for some reason nowadays; I used to like it, very popular food here. Don't our New Orleans people have it too? There is a butcher's at marché Jean-Talon selling spicy boudin créole now; they poached a very talented cook from Haiti from a butcher's at the other end of the market, where she had worked for several years.
But I still have most of an organic chicken left to eat up this week; I had made a "sofrito de poulet", not a Spanish sofrito but a Maghrebi or Sephardic dish of a chicken simmered whole at very low heat for quite a long time with a small amount of olive oil and lemon, and seasonings.
I'd hate to waste it - my freezer isn't working very well so I can't freeze it. And while I love food, I don't eat very big portions.
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Post by rikita on Jun 29, 2009 15:52:02 GMT
ah, chicken reminds me when i lived in romania and wanted to buy some frozen chicken in the supermarket - i didn't have much money so i went for the cheapest package - at home i realized it was mainly feet and some wings... well but i made a soup out of it and it tasted alright...
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 29, 2009 16:27:35 GMT
I'd definitely say blood pudding counts as offal. I went to school in southwest Louisiana and only boudin blanc was to be found in stores -- usually home-made and sold in little mom&pop stores. I was told that boudin noir was not legal. Don't know if that's true, but do know I never saw any. I never ate blood pudding until I moved to Mexico and was introduced to moronga. Here's the definition of offal: 1: the waste or by-product of a process: as a: trimmings of a hide b: the by-products of milling used especially for stock feeds c: the viscera and trimmings of a butchered animal removed in dressing : variety meat (amusing, obvious etymology) |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 29, 2009 16:54:15 GMT
They probably switched to 'variety' because they had too many problems trying to spell 'viscera'.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 29, 2009 17:10:39 GMT
"They"? I assume "variety" meats is a marketing ploy. It sounds fun and expansive as opposed to choices of poverty-stricken leavings.
Viscera are called proudly called vísceras here, and displayed alongside the muscle meats.
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Post by gertie on Mar 7, 2010 4:35:47 GMT
I've seen tripe prepared on a cooking show and to be truthful it didn't look as if I would like the texture all that well, at least as it was being prepared. One of the old Fugal Gourmet series. In some parts of the Texas backwoods, fried chicken hearts, livers, and gizzards are considered delicacies, and I've had them all. The one thing I disliked was the grainy bits in the gizzards, but the taste is pretty good. I like liver and onions if done well, usually it isn't, it is overcooked to shoe leather. Love goose liver. Had kidney in London and liked it fine. I'm not opposed to trying brains but it is one of those things I'd like to try without knowing beforehand what it is. Too many of those old black and white zombie flicks I guess because just the mention of it has me thinking "Brrrraaaaiiiins!".
I had beef tongue once when I was young and thought it was fine but it had an interesting texture. One of the teachers at my High School was fond of bring in odd things and asking us to taste and guess, for bonus points, what it was. I got +20 for being the first to guess tongue. He also brought in squirrel stew - rich and delicious I might add, and roasted raccoon roast - raccoons have roasts? Whatever it was rather tasteless.
I saw an episode of Iron Chef not too long ago where the topic of the contest was offal and one of them made a chocolate liver mousse the judges thought was awesome. I'll take their word for it. If there is one thing I don't want in my chocolate, it's offal, sorry. I wouldn't put an elephant to live in a Paris apartment either, so there you go.
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