organ meat Archives -

I have been making liver pâté for many years. I have finally learned that it’s not how much you add to it to “cover up” the flavor of the liver. But rather, learning to work with the flavor of liver. In this post, I will teach you the simple secret of how to make liver pate taste amazing!

The last time I made it I asked my husband what he thought of this liver pâté recipe and he said it was the best one I had ever made. Ironically, I used the least amount of ingredients to make that batch. Previously, I had tried all kinds of tricks to cover up the taste of liver.

Liver does have a unique taste if you compare it to what the average Western Diet is currently made up of. However, in time, you too can adjust your palate to enjoy this rich savory food. If you want to know why liver is so important to me, and why I encourage my patients to eat liver, here is an article talking about the benefits and why we incorporate liver into our diets.

The Secret to Making Amazing Liver Pâté

The really easy secret to preparing liver is: do not over cook it. Learn to cook it just until done by using a food thermometer to guide you. Liver is fully cooked when it reaches an internal temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit. My YouTube video shows you the proper temperature taking technique of liver.

Liver Pâté

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Prep Time 10

Cook Time 30

Ingredients

1 lb chicken liver rinsed and patted dry
1/2 large onion finely chopped
1 small apple peeled and finely chopped
2-4 tbs heavy cream
7 tbs butter
salt, pepper, herbs to taste optional

Instructions

Add 2 tbs butter to a stainless steal pain. Add chopped onion and cook until carmilized on medium to low heat. This usually takes about 15 minutes. Then add the apple and cook until soft, about 7 minutes.
Remove onion and apple from the pan.
Turn heat to about medium. Add another 2 tbs butter to the pan. Add chicken livers and cook one side about 3 minutes.
Flip to other side and turn heat down slightly. Cover with lid and cook another 3 minutes.
Take temperature of liver. See my YouTube video for proper temperature taking technique.
If livers have not reached 160°F, continue to cook, checking temperature frequently. Once you reach 160°F, quickly remove liver from pan and place into a food processor for blending.
Add onions, apple, 2-3tbs butter, and 2tbs cream. Blend well. Add more cream or butter to taste. You can also add seasonings like salt, pepper, rosemary, or thyme. We like our pate plain with only salt added, but you can get creative how you like.

Notes

Beef Heart Facts and Benefits

I feel it is one of my duties to educate more people on the benefits of organ means. Above all, not just educate, but show you how to do it and make it as simple and realistic as possible.

Traditional cultures prized organ meats for their high concentration of nutrients. Organ meats are a great source of fat soluble and readily avaliable vitamins A and D. In addition, they also contain a variety of b vitamins and other beneficial minerals like selenium and zinc.

Another really important nutrient that organ meats provide is choline. Choline is a rather “new” nutrient, it is possible you may have never heard of it. It was officially recognized as an essential nutrient in 1998. Choline plays a role in neurotransmitter synthesis and provides a source of methyl group for metabolism. That is a large order to fill!! Especially since almost every process in our body is driven by metabolism. Sadly, average intakes of choline are far below what is recommended. I personally, think that low intake of this nutrient may relate to the diet culture jargon that slanders organ meats and other nourishing animal foods. Hint: animal sources are all really rich sources of choline.

The organ we are talking about today is beef heart. Beef heart is rich in all the aforementioned vitamins/minerals, but it is unique because it has a high concentration of collagen and the compound, CoQ10. Including beef heart or other organ meats can be a beneficial addition to your diet. It’s like taking a potent multivitamin!

How to Process beef heart

Beef heart is my favorite organ meat to consume. The heart is a muscle, therefore, it is very similar in taste and texture to muscle cuts of meat. In other words, it resembles a very lean steak. If you read my post about liver, you know that we try to consume liver on the regular in our home. Heart has a less of a strong taste and is very easily hidden into ground meat.

Down below I provide the steps you can take to get the beef heart ready for a recipe calling for ground beef heart. There are some ground meat blends that already have organs ground into them- this can be an excellent option if you are short on time. Beef heart is very inexpensive and I prefer to save the money and do it myself.

Time needed: 15 minutes

How to Process Beef Heart for Grinding

Using a sharp knife trim the hard fat, silvery skin, and connective tissue off of the heart muscle.
Most butchers will clean out some of the tendons on the inside of the heart. Any remaining connective tissues should be remove to avoid including chewy and tough parts into the recipe.
Rinse any remaining blood off of the heart.
Cube the heart into large chunks
Grind heart in a meat grinder.
Heart will not grind up like steak or meat. The texture is a bit different. Once ground, the heart is ready to use in recipes calling for ground beef heart. If you do not have a way of grinding the meat, finely dicing is another option.

Why Grind up the beef heart

Those who enjoy a well cooked beef heart may cringe at this recipe. However, there is a large audience of people who are unsure of where to begin when they enter the world of organ meats. In my years of practice, I have found that adding them to “normal” recipes tends to be more accepted at first.

Grinding the beef heart also makes it easy to add into foods and is a cost effective way of “stretching” ground meat.

Adding ground beef heart to recipes

Down below I provide an easy to follow recipe that makes serving your family organ meats easy. This recipe makes a large batch. These meatballs freeze very well. We usually eat them for dinner once or twice and then the rest I freezer for nights when I want a quick meal. They pair well with spaghetti squash or pasta, marinara sauce, and of course asiago cheese! There are many ways you could serve them- this is just our current favorite way!