There is a lot of hype going on about pasture raised, free ranging meat in the food world right now. However I got to thinking that even though this meat is comparitively beautiful and nutritious to eat, it is still muscle meat, and would have still been given to the dogs in pre-industrialised cultures. The nutritional aspect of organ meats gets a lot of lip service in my neck of the woods, but who actually eats it on a regular basis? I know I haven’t.
So I said to my husband one day, “we need to be eating and incorporating more organ meats in our diet’. So the lovely man sits down and starts writing out formulas and spice mixes to make up some organ meat sausages. He contacts our local butcher who sells beautiful local free range meats and does a deal where we provide the flour/spice mix and specify amounts of regular mince, fat, liver, kidney and heart to the butcher. He then makes up either sausages or just regular mince (minus the flour/spices). We made up 5 kilos of sausages at a time, and 5 kilos of mince.
The sausages come out absolutely beautiful. The trick is the amount and type of spices which down play and soften the almost always over powering taste of the organs. We have them at least three times a week. I don’t get that normal ‘Khhacckk, khaaaaack’ taste in the back of my throat, and in fact I can’t taste the organs at all. The texture is a little finer than normal sausages, and it goes down a treat with sauerkraut and brown sauce. Best of all the price came to $6/kilo.
I tried cooking the mince into a regular spaghetti bolognaise and just added my regular veggies, tomatoes and cooking herbs. It came out awful…. I cannot emphasise enough that cooking with organ meats means educating oneself on how to make it taste good!!
My husband grew up eating kidney and liver and has a much better idea than me. The trick is lots of pepper, and freshly ground mace. These two spices are imperative!
Here’s hubby’s formula for those who are interested in making up their own organ mixed minces and sausages: Enjoy!
5 kilo sausage recipe:
2.5kg regular meat: fat = 800gm, meat = 1.7kg
2.5kg offal: liver = 1 kg, kidney = 500gm, heart = 1kg
Flour mix:
460gm spelt flour
1 tsp freshly powdered mace
3 tsp ground pepper
1 tsp ground cumin seed
1 heaped tbsp salt (sea salt or himalayan)
1 tsp ground coriander seed
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp ground mixed pepper seed (white and black pepper)
Vive le organ meats 🙂
life outside mainstream 