Offal doesn't have to be awful

[Anonymous No.6727890]

I hear offal(organ meats if you who don't know the word) gets a bad rap, hearing this I decided I wanted to try some. So I thought I'd come here and ask you cooking experts what the best kinds of offal for a beginner to try to get and cook would be. Any recommendations for particular cuts or recipes would be appreciated.

[Anonymous No.6728070]

I love offals and, as a frenchfag, enjoy our glorious legacy of godlike régimes to prépare nearly any part of a living animal.
Offals are very healthy, low fat and high minerals/vitamin content.

Best one immo is sweetbread but it is expensive and kinda hard to Cook right. Try it at a local restaurant, glazed in a wine sauce or braised on an Argentinian parilla are my fav.

For cooking yourself you can start with calf liver, it's not too strong in flavour, albeit much more metallic and slightly more bitter than steack.
Kidneys are trickier to prepare as you need to clean them well but they are delicious with a Port sauce or some good mustard. Accompany whit mashed potatoes and some arugula and you got yourself a divine meal.

Then you can explore stuff like bone marrow, blood sausage, tripe in tomato sauce, calf head, crusty pork ears in wine etc etc.

[Anonymous No.6728080]

>>6728070
>>Sweetbreads

This rasies a good point. Many kinds of offal are delicious but they go bad very quickly. Sweetbreads are a great example. Kidneys too. Unless you have a source where you can get them very fresh (like a genuine old-school butcher shop) you may have a hard time with either not being able to get them at all, or being able to get them but in poor condition due to age.

I agree that calf liver is a good starting point. It's widely available and not very difficult to cook. In fact, less is more with liver--you really don't want to cook it too long.

[Anonymous No.6728244]

>>6728070
>>6728080

Ah thank you for sharing your expertise anons, I've already tried a bit of liver and enjoyed it. I will try to see if I can find a good place to get the others.

[Anonymous No.6728678]

>>6728080
Where else, apart from a butcher, would you get offals anyway?
In Europe kidney and liver are available in relatively good conditions.
Anything else you need to go to your fav butcher from which youbshould be getting your meat in the first place anyway.

[Anonymous No.6728958]

Two tongues?

[Anonymous No.6729084]

Organs are pretty tasty except kidneys nothing can make them taste OK. and I don't like the taste of urine.

[Anonymous No.6729107]

An easy and delicious meal is if you just fry up some liver (I usually use pork because that's what my local butcher has) together with some cut up apples and onions and serve it with mashed potatoes.

[Anonymous No.6729118]

>>6729084

This guy knows what's up

[Anonymous No.6729559]

Definetely Coratella is one of my best offal recipes, look it up!

[Anonymous No.6729636]

What does tripe taste like? It looks like a goddamn nightmare.

[Anonymous No.6729659]

>>6729636
Not like much, but it smells like a barnyard. Strongly.

[Anonymous No.6729667]

>>6729659
What's the texture like? Does it have any redeeming qualities?

[Anonymous No.6729673]

>>6729667
I don't think so but I'm not hugely experienced. Menudo is my only experience with it. I know this is an offal thread but I recommend cheek and tongue meat.

[Anonymous No.6729687]

>>6729673
Beef cheeks braised in red wine are fantastic. Never had tongue, though.

[Anonymous No.6729732]

>>6729667

It doesn't have much taste if washed properly and just a crunchy chewy texture.

[Anonymous No.6730018]

>>6729687
cheeks is an organ?

Tongue is unbelievable good, lean and tasty. good for tacos and stuff. itsb est seared like filet.

tripes are ok but you REALLY have to have a good recipe to make it tasty.

[Anonymous No.6730039]

> eating brain

Not even once.

[Anonymous No.6730849]

>>6730039
lol, why not? Do you even marrow?

[Anonymous No.6730870]

>>6729636
wow that's the worst offal I ever seen

[Anonymous No.6731065]

Pan-fried chicken liver with fried onions. It's pretty accessible for people unaccustomed to offal.

[Anonymous No.6732150]

>>6729084
You are not preparing them well you dumbass.
If you do not remover the pyramids and chalices correctly there is indeed a residual amoníaco/urea taste.
The matin kidney tissue tastes more or less like liver.

[Anonymous No.6732151]

>>6727890
offal is pretty much a nope for me unless its soup or skewers, I pretty much have no love for the dishes that are centered around nothing but liver and onions and the like.

[Anonymous No.6732152]

>>6729636
Dice it finely in tomato sauce and it tastes rather good.
You can fry it too and it mixes well in a ragu.
Def not my fav but it's fairly better than lung for example.

[Anonymous No.6732154]

>>6730039
>>6730849

Beef bone marrow is such a delicacy, on a good slice of bread with a few salt crystals it's fucking divine. Especially when it has been slow cooked for hours in a broth

[Anonymous No.6732158]

>>6732154
I feel sorry for people who haven't had bone marrow and uni tostadas

[Anonymous No.6732164]

>>6727890
chicken gizzards. If you like chicken, and dark meat is your favorite, then you will love chicken gizzards. And chicken hearts

[Anonymous No.6732166]

>>6732158
>bone marrow
>sea urchins (you can use the proper English word you weaboo)
>tostada

These three things shouldn't be mixed. I don't see any way this would taste right.
Fucking fusion cuisine

What's next? A sweetbread/caviar okonomiyaki?

[Anonymous No.6732171]

>>6732166
Don't knock it til you've tried it

Also, umami umami umami

[Anonymous No.6732190]

Never cooked any offal before but there's a taco truck near me that makes AMAZING beef tongue tacos and I've been wanting to try making it myself at home. Was thinking of following this recipe, Serious Eats has never failed me before:

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/04/tacos-de-lengua-recipe.html

Anyone in the know want to weigh in?

[Anonymous No.6732192]

>>6732190
>lengua

Sounds completely epic

[Anonymous No.6732202]

>>6729636
ive only had it in pho the tastes is not bad but the techture is fucking gross

[Anonymous No.6732235]

>>6728678
I currently live in America. Of the nearly two dozen (4srs) or so grocery stores within two or three miles of my house, the only ones that don't carry any offal at all are the three Superfreshes, the two Acmes, Walmart, Target and Aldi. All the other ones do, just that the selection is better at some than others or will vary from grocer to grocer. Unsurprisingly, the widest variety of offal is found at the Asian ones, which carry all cuts, except tongues for some reason, from all common animals, except lamb/mutton and kid/goat.

If I want beef tongue, I go to either of the two Mexican grocers. For all lamb's/mutton's organs (including the illegal-to-sell lungs, but excluding sweetbreads and spleen), I go to either of the two North African/Middle Easter grocers. If I want goat's organs, I'm out of luck unless I just want the head, in which case, the Carib and South Asian grocers both carry them.

The only things I seem to be unable to find without going to a specialist butcher are spleens and sweetbreads of any sort. I grew up on both but they are not generally available in my area.

>>6732151
Nor I. I'm not a fan, but the oddest thing, I occasionally get hankerings for pork liver and pork kidneys even though I detest both. I'll eat them, all while making faces of disgust followed by one of satisfaction. It's bizarre. I don't know why I do this.

>>6729636
Beef tripe, not like a hell of a whole lot, really. It's got an odour to it, though. Where I'm from, it's traditionally prepared as a salad with lemon juice, so the odour is mostly neutralised.
Pork tripe isn't a common food for back home, but here in the US, I've only had it stewed in something sweet as a dim sum dish.
I don't know about other tripes.

>>6729084
>>6732150
Yeah, it has to be prepared correctly, or it'll taste really, rather bad. Even when prepared correctly, it's still not very tasty. But then, I don't like organs much to begin with.

>>6728244
Liver paste is good.

[Anonymous No.6732240]

>>6732235
>that guy who replies to every single post in the thread

Your opinion is not THAT interesting

[Anonymous No.6732265]

>>6732240
Your mum likes my opinion. She laps it right up. That's what she calls spunk, right?

[Anonymous No.6732291]

>>6732166
I don't know, I can see bone marrow and tostada working well together, I can see uni and a tostada being fine, and I can imagine bone marrow and uni together actually being pretty good.

Why not all three?

[Anonymous No.6732575]

ITT

[Anonymous No.6732823]

>>6732291
Uni and tostada would be okay but not too interesting, the strong Maiz taste and overly greasy aspect of the tostada would anihiliate the delicate taste of the uni. Good combination of textures but it's a bit of a waste of urchins. A regular shrimp ceviche would taste bequally good or better.

Bone marrow/tostada is kinda the same, very greasy and fat combination.you'd have to add fresh vegetables to it which would kill most of the flavour of the bone marrow.

Uni and.marrow is an horrible texture combination and their flavour would cancel each other.

But that's like my opinion. Enjoy it if you want

[Anonymous No.6732832]

>>6727890
>implying offal is awful in the first place

we have been eating it for generations, only the stupid spoiled boomers refuse to eat anything but prime cuts

and now the whole world is turning to shit buckling under an ever growing agri-business and we dont know why

[OP No.6732836]

>>6729636
Mostly used to carry stuffing, infuses a bit of taste into the stuffing, but nothing much else! Mostly a fancy way to deliver food. Also good fried in strips.

[Anonymous No.6732839]

>>6732265
I don't know, you tell me.

I don't know my mom THAT intimately.

The mom I know well is yours.

[Anonymous No.6732843]

>>6732190
Beef tongue is good, just pressure boil the living fuck out of it. Great with rice and yogurt!

[Anonymous No.6732847]

>>6732575
Nothing wrong with a bit of cannibalism!

[Anonymous No.6732867]

>>6732836
>he doesn't order tripe tacos every chance he gets

my favorite, tied with tongue and cheek

[Anonymous No.6733905]

>>6729659
when you cook tripe chuck in a whole onion in the pot. it greatly eliminates the smell.