Liver. The dreaded food. In a recent survey on the CTF Facebook page, half of the people who responded stated they just can’t do it.
And that was the moms, not the kids!
My first several years of eating traditional foods, I couldn’t bring myself to try it, either. I had a high gag factor to anything I thought was gross. It wasn’t until I began healing my gut that I got serious about consuming it. OK, well, I thought about it hard. I got online, talked to friends and looked over recipes. I finally settled on a nice chicken liver pâté and bought some grass-fed livers from my local farmer.
Then I let them sit in the freezer for a few months while I got up my nerve.
OK, I promptly made myself forget their presence.
My Liver Quivered
You knew that line was coming, didn’t you?
Finally the day came we cleaned out the freezer and my husband notified me they had received their eviction notice- cook it or throw the package in the garbage. So I dutifully cooked and blended it up, all while trying not to look at what I was doing. I spooned it into condiment cups, plastered a BIG smile on my face, walked into the dining room, plopped it on the table and backed up behind them to see what would happen, my face hurting from the fake grin. They sniffed, eyeballed me and asked what it was. I responded with a bright “Pate!!!!” with all the cheerfulness I could muster, as if pâté was a normal menu item they should recognize. The ‘come on, honey! You’ve eaten it every week of your life since you started solids!’ tone and the plastered smile convinced them to pick up a cracker.
My son scooped up a huge glob and took a big bite. Within two bites he had cleared his small bowl and asked for a refill. My daughter shrugged, saying it was ‘ok.’ She needed a little encouragement, but she ate hers and came to like it. When they were done, they hopped down and went back to playing.
I sat down and stared at my untouched bowl. I swallowed hard and told myself to cowgirl up.
Suck it up, Buttercup!
Mind over matter!
Quit pussyfooting around!
EAT it, already!
My initial impression was, ‘needs more bacon.’ I ate it without ‘yuck’ ever crossing my mind. No gagging, no twisted faces, no forcing it down. To my surprise, it was not hurl-worthy. Later that week I made it again and added more bacon. I actually liked it once the bacon was better balanced and I got the saltiness right. That pâté recipe is here.
The Big Secret
Here’s the big secret about liver: You don’t have to eat a lot of it. I know some folks just cringed in horror at that statement because it’s considered to be such an all-powerful, sacred food in traditional food circles. But think about it for a moment. If we were all living in a traditional culture and eating an awesome diet, how much liver would you really get? If you eat a whole chicken over two meals for a family of four, you’d each only get one bite of liver in those two meals. A beef liver weighs 10 or so pounds compared to a body weight of 400+ pounds.
Yeah, you wouldn’t be getting much liver. You have my permission to eat only a little. The key is to make it a small but consistent part of your diet.
Hide It
So, how do you do that? Break out your food processor and some ice cube trays. Take your half-frozen beef liver, cut it into pieces and pop it into the processor. Pulse it until the beef is in tiny pieces or mostly ground. Scoop it into the ice cube trays, pack each cube lightly with the back of a spoon and freeze. Once they’re solid, pop them out and transfer to a freezer container for long-term storage.
Now any time you are going to cook ground beef, take out a cube or two when you pull the beef to thaw. Combine the thawed liver with the ground beef when you mix or cook it. Use only one cube for more delicately flavored dishes and two for stronger dishes like spaghetti or tacos. If you have a super-taster in your family, leave it at one cube until they adjust.
See? That really didn’t hurt. And now you can make sure your kids get liver and it’s hidden. They’ll never have a clue.
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I have done something similar to this for the first time this week. It was a success!
I think doing up a half-frozen liver in the food processor would have been much less messy. I put a fully thawed liver through the meat grinder attachment on the Kitchen Aide. ick. came out liquid. I put about a 1/4 cup into snack-sized ziplocks, and added that to the 1.5# pkg of ground beef. Since that package is enough to feed our family of 5 twice, we are essentially getting the same dose.
Husband could taste it in the naked cooked beef with onions, but he could not detect after it had been seasoned for the dish. Hazah!
Yay! Whoo hoooo!
KerryAnn Foster recently posted..Seven Ways to Store Fruits and Vegetables
Your article is funny because it is true. I am currently in the “liver in the freezer” stage. Thanks for the motivation to press on!
Try it out and let us know how it goes! I’m always excited to hear other people’s results.
KerryAnn Foster recently posted..Bone Broth Marathon: Navy Bean Soup
I need to try this, I know I do.
My current excuse is, I can’t find it organic, so there is no way I am consuming it.
Maybe if I can find a pastured liver….
I’m with you there! I finally bought some but after I got home I thought: it’s not organic! It’s not even pastured–I can’t eat it. So I stuck it in the freezer.
Do you have a dog or a cat? You can feed it to them. My cat inhales any liver I put in front of him.
KerryAnn Foster recently posted..Get Real: I’m Not His Mommy
Some farmers have it for mail order. Check out the back of a Wise Traditions.
KerryAnn Foster recently posted..Seven Ways to Store Fruits and Vegetables
Liver still makes me quiver. I have a pretty sensitive sense of smell and I can smell the metallic-y smell that blood has whenever I use liver. It still grosses me out, but I force myself to eat it. I hide it in all sorts of stuff so I can ensure my hubby eats it too.
Do you soak yours in milk? I try to squeeze mine a lot before I cook it to get extra blood out of there. Any tips regarding the metallic-y smell? The stuff I get is either organic beef or elk from when my dad goes hunting.
Great post!
Jessica recently posted..What Do I Do With This Lacto-Fermented Garlic?
I haven’t yet tried soaking mine in milk because we haven’t yet trialed Trey on dairy. I hope to do that in another week or two. Belle and I successfully passed the trial and we’re back on dairy.
The best advice I can give you for the smell is to use strong flavors to cover it. Examples would be spaghetti with lots of garlic and Italian seasoning or tacos with extra chili powder and cumin.
KerryAnn Foster recently posted..Get Real: I’m Not His Mommy
I’m fine with liver fried up with greens (that’s how I had it as a child), but Kelsy does most of the cooking these days and can’t stand the stuff. She hides it!
Here are a couple of the recipes we’ve all enjoyed:
http://theliberatedkitchenpdx.com/recipes/pork-fennel-sausage-patties-take-2/
http://theliberatedkitchenpdx.com/recipes/make-ahead-meatloaf/
One thing to note is that the livers of different animals have very different tastes. Start with chicken!
Joy at The Liberated Kitchen recently posted..Creative Food Storage
THank you for sharing the recipes. They look great!
KerryAnn Foster recently posted..Seven Ways to Store Fruits and Vegetables
What I love the most about my liver is that I have gotten it for free. I put the word out that we will gladly take your liver, heart, and tongue from anyone who buys a whole or part of a cow. Most people don’t ask for it or they get it and never eat it. I have gotten enough that weekly. I feed my family a pound of liver and have for over s year and have yet to pay for it. I blend it in the blender and usually cook it right then with a couple pounds of hamburger using it in sloppy Joe’s, tacos spaghetti, Chili,meatlof or some other beef dish. My kids have come to prefer the taste.
I get a lot of organ meat that way, but I also get tons of beef bones like that! It’s wonderful and the farmers appreciate it because they don’t feel like part of the animal is going to waste.
KerryAnn Foster recently posted..Get Real: I’m Not His Mommy
Those who are getting free organs–are you contacting the farmer about this, and getting it straight from the farm, or are you contacting people who are ordering parts of a cow and getting it from them? Great idea!
Well, I have gotten mine from friends but I am sure it wouldn’t hurt to ask the farmer.
Christy recently posted..Crayons, Crayons, Crayons
I just got my first grass fed liver (it’s frickin HUGE!!! I didn’t realize they were so massive). Anyway, I’ve just started taking raw liver shots – grating or chopping the liver up into really tiny pieces, putting it into a shot glass with a bit of lemon juice, and swallowing it back quickly (the lemon juice works okay, but I think raw milk would be even better at disguising it). I’m loving it!!!
Honestly, it’s lucky because raw liver is even better for you than cooked liver, and I actually find the idea of knocking back raw liver in a painless gulp to be WAY more appealing than taking it out and attempting to actually cook it up for dinner. I am not a person who likes the taste of liver. at. all.
Although if you have kids, I’m guessing you’re gonna have a hard time convincing them to take liver shots hahah. Good luck, friend!
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You can also cube it in really small and set the cubes on the back of your tongue and swallow. I’ve done it that way before, too. When I first started traditional foods ten years ago, that was commonly recommended.
You know, I’m due to grate up more beef liver this week. I might see if I can convince my kids to try it! LOL! Although I’ve never gotten them to swallow pills before, I’m sure they can do it. They’re 7 and 9.
KerryAnn Foster recently posted..Seven Ways to Store Fruits and Vegetables
My favourite liver recipe is a mouth watering dish called Lamb’s liver with persillade and sauté potatoes. As you know liver is low in fat, high in protein and packed with aq good source of vitamins and minerals. But the secret to this dish is to use very fresh liver which is pale pink in colour, with no stickiness or smell. Then you need to cook it very quickly.
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That sounds good, Bob. Thanks for sharing!
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Maybe my mistake was trying liver for the first time while I was pregnant. I was determined to nourish myself and my little baby with this superfood – and we had a beautiful beyond organic beef quarter in the freezer. I tried to hide it in some spaghetti sauce – that was tolerable, though I could definitely taste it. Then I tried mixing it with ground beef and using that as a pizza topping. I was only using a little bit – I was actually grating it frozen on a box grater, so I couldn’t really get that much at a time. Something about it on that pizza, I fear may have ruined it for me forever!
I still have a lot of lovely beef liver in the freezer. I had no realistic hope of using until I read this – now I am feeling like I ought to give it one more chance. If chicken livers are more mild, maybe I should try those first!?! Thanks for the encouragement!
Wow. Yes, pregnancy can definitely make a difference! MY nose is hyper-sensitive when I’m pregnant. I have a hard time with even normal foods, like cooked eggs.
Try the chicken liver and let me know how it goes! I’d love to hear back from you.
KerryAnn Foster recently posted..Seven Ways to Store Fruits and Vegetables
I added a tiny bit of liver to our burgers tonight. I couldn’t even taste it but my husband did. I have yet to sneak it past him no matter how I disguise it. He even hates heart. Oh well. He doesn’t say a word in front of the kids at least.
I’m not successfully able to put it into burgers without them noticing. It normally takes strong flavored dishes like Italian or Mexican to keep them from noticing.
KerryAnn Foster recently posted..Bone Broth Marathon: Navy Bean Soup
One of the family’s favorite delicacies when I was a kid was chopped chicken liver. My mother ground it in a hand-powered grinder and the whole house smelled wonderful. Check out traditional Jewish recipes for chopped liver–you will probably find it tasty and easy to make. You cook the liver thoroughly before grinding and combining with the other ingredients. Of course, we didn’t use any bacon, but I remember cooked onion and hardboiled egg–don’t know the rest of the recipe.
It makes lovely pate.
Judith, I’m not familiar with it. I’ll go look it up and try some out. Thank you!
This recipe may be close to what my mother and grandmother made:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Old-Country-Chopped-Liver-102024
Schmaltz is chicken fat, and here is a recipe:
http://www.sadiesalome.com/recipes/schmaltz.html
However, I think i remember my grandmother using the fat that solidified on top of the liquid from a boiled chicken, after overnight refrigeration–part of the process of making chicken soup. (I could be wrong about this.) She probably processed it as the recipe describes. I’m going to try this with a pastured organic chicken.
My mother ground everything together in a meat grinder on coarse grind, so it had a finer texture than the chopped liver recipe calls for–easy to spread on crackers. Adjust or add seasonings to suit your taste. I may add sauteed garlic.
I also reclaim the fat from making chicken stock and use it as schmaltz. I star the stock and then skim off the fat after a couple of hours. I strain it into a jar. Then I pop it into the fridge and let it solidify.
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Been doing this forever…but regularly loose product because I can’t get it out of the tray or even the food processor. Thanks so much for the half frozen tip!
I also use cooked and ground chicken livers in the same manor. I make the pate mixture and put it in the refirgerator and just plop a couple table spoons into any recipe that I think will hide it.
Kelly, Once you’re sure it’s completely solid, flip the tray over and blast the back with hot water long enough to get the cubes to turn loose. That works for me!
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This is funny! I grew up in a farming family and we actually fight over innards! With chickens we do the pass around everyone gets a bite, I know kinda silly, but everyone wants them. Larger animals it is more easy to share as of course there is more. Heart, liver, tongue, they are all on the menu here. The thing I really miss from growing up and have no idea how to make is pickled pigs feet, way better when grandma and mom made them than what you can purchase. And yes they were REAL feet.
I occasionally buy packages of just livers and gizzards from chicken, it is a huge treat. My granddaughters 3 and 6 love them too. They have always had them offered to them, so it is not an unusual thing.
Being from the South, I meet a lot of people here who like fried hearts and gizzards. It’s still easy to get packages of them in the grocery stores.
KerryAnn Foster recently posted..National Apricot Day: Curried Honey Mustard Chicken
To the folks who still don’t like liver, or whose family members don’t, try chicken livers first. If you can find pastured, organic chicken livers, even better. They really are milder than most liver. I’m not very fond of other types, but chicken livers seem tasty to me.
Yes, I think pate was a good introduction. I’m going to try grating some chicken liver and putting it into ground beef this week to see if I can tell any difference.
KerryAnn Foster recently posted..The Secret About Liver Every Real Food Mama Should Know
This is so timely; I just ordered some chicken liver from a local farmer…I get it with the rest of my order on Saturday! I’ve never had liver before (to my knowledge) so I’m very nervous. But I’ve got a pate recipe I want to try and I might hide a little in some ground beef for chili. I figure I’ll never know what I think until I try it. I do love trying new foods, so here’s to hoping it’s delicious!!
Yay!! Let me know how it turns out!
KerryAnn Foster recently posted..Bone Broth Marathon: Navy Bean Soup
My 14 year old daughter requested liver for her birthday dinner. I sliced up a pasture raised beef liver into small strips being careful to remove any of the vessel vein walls and the tougher parts around the sides (you know, the slightly silver edges) sliced the whole thing up into strips about 1″x1/2″ by however long. Then i soaked it all for several hours in raw milk. Before pan frying I dipped each strip in fresh ground spelt with my own season salt and pepper and fried it all up in coconut oil. Served with fried onion and whole artichokes and raw butter (the rest of her birthday meal request). Also my lacto-fermented ketchup, which is wonderful on liver. It was crispy and tender and so yummy! My beautiful girl was so happy! Even her brother in law, who hates liver tried it and had to admit it was really good, and i saw him sneak seconds! We gave the leftover milk, (as well as the liver scraps) we soaked the liver in to our kitties and they loved it too!
Yay! What a great birthday meal!
My cat is also nuts about raw milk and liver. We always pass some along to him and he inhales it. lol
KerryAnn Foster recently posted..Seven Ways to Store Fruits and Vegetables
I recently started eating liver after reading the book “Cure Tooth Decay” by Ramiel Nagel. I wanted to try it again after not eating it for many years. I got some grassfed beef liver from Whole Foods. The butcher had just put it out and to my delight it was very inexpensive. I dredged it in a little flour and fried it with a little bacon grease. Fried some onions also. Liver and onions never tasted so good. I am now hooked on eating liver. I think the quality of the liver had a lot to do with the flavor.
I LOVE liver! my mom used to bread and fry chicken livers and we would gobble them up like they were chicken nuggets. Imagine my dismay when I tried that with my family and it was a huge flop. 🙁 I do the hiding a lot. next time I will process the half-frozen stuff, that’s a good tip. I keep doing the fully thawed liver and it does liquify. DH was revolted he went to make himself a drink and found our ice cube trays full of it. LOL!!
I adore the innards — heart, gizzard, liver. Tried brain: interesting. Had tongue: Better than brain. 🙂 We had a young girl over the lunch the other day and my husband asked if you wanted a pb&j sandwich (which I knew she wouldn’t because they’re tight on funds and eating a lot of them), and I jokingly asked if she wanted some liver and onion.
“Yes, please,” she replied and my jaw hung down. My husband apparently had too much wax in his ears because he asked her repeatedly if that was what she truly wanted. lol
So, being pregnant and having liver in the fridge regularly, I fried us up some liver and onions. Delicious! I will say that she didn’t eat her onions and told me that they were just for flavor. If I’d know that, I would have eaten all of her onions.
Does anyone know how to make Braunschwager?
It is an easy way to down liver but store bought
has all the nitrates and non grass fed meat used.
Also store bought is made with pork liver and I don’t
know how different that tastes from beef liver.
What ever happened to calf’s liver?
Isn’t that supposed to taste milder?
Also is chicken livers as nutritious as beef liver.
They are not nearly as strong tasting easier.
I like liver. Thanks for the motivation to try eating more of it. Will definitely talk to a farmer about getting livers leftover from people who buy whole or half cows.
We hunt and I have found moose liver to be the mildest. It has a willowy flavour. I like deer liver as well. Beef, I’ve found, can be very strong in comparison but I’ll still eat it.
Hear you about not actually eating a ton of liver. When we butcher a deer there is enough meat to feed our family for months. Only enough liver for a few meals though.
I found a copy of “Mother’s in the Kitchen” (older LLL cookbook) and was surprised to see that they had a whole section on liver! I don’t know exactly how/why our knowledge about the benefits of liver went by the wayside… I remember eating at the “Capital Room” at Belks’ for lunch growing up and getting (and enjoying) liver & onions… I love pate, liverwurst and liver & onions, prepared by other people. The challenge is to fix liver myself, thanks for the inspiration! 🙂
I cooked liver for the first time last night. Organic free range local chicken liver. I didn’t want to do pâté because I like my children to experience the real food the taste and texture. So anyway I sautéed it with mushrooms and garlic threw in some tomato Purée and served it on noodles. No one in our family had tried liver before…my 7yr old son loved it and said they were fluffy like a cloud when he bit them….my 5yr old said she liked the taste but the texture was too weird. It’s not my favorite but my husband and I liked it enough to add it to our dinner rotation. It’s fun to try new things. 🙂
I used to eat tons of liver and onions because my grandmother loved it. But as an adult I avoid it. Why consume something that is a filter for the body’s toxins? Please expalin it to me
Eyerish, the liver does not store toxins. It filters them and then shuttles them off to be sequestered in the fat cells. Liver is an extremely nutrient-dense food when it comes from an animal fed a species-appropriate diet of 100% grass. It contains many vitamins and minerals typically in short supply in modern diets. When an animal is fed appropriately, the liver is clean of toxins. It’s when an animal is fed an inappropriate diet including grains, the liver can contain toxins as they go there for filtering and the weak liver can’t manage it.
So liver is a very healthy food full of vitamins and minerals so long as it is a healthy animal on a species appropriate diet.
KerryAnn Foster recently posted..Freezer Cooking: ‘Bourbon’ Chicken
We love liver at our house! I was raised in England, and we English love our organ meats. I still can’t get my kids to love kidney like I do though!. Two things have made a big difference with our approach to liver. I buy grass-fed beef liver from my wonderful Amish farmer. Most of the time I soak it in lemon juice – about 2 lemons for a pound of sliced liver- for about 2-4 hours. I dry the liver, dip in sprouted flour and fry in lard. Don’t over-cook it, leave it very pink, otherwise you might as well use it to put on the bottom of your shoes! I fry up lots of sweet onions and serve them together. So wonderful!! The other way we serve liver is in patties. I can buy ground liver from my farmer. I mix in a few eggs, salt, pepper, finely chopped onions and some sprouted bread crumbs (from one or two pieces of bread). This “batter” is then pan fried in lard for about 5-6 minutes a side (a cast iron pan is best). They look like hamburgers and taste great. Even the squeamish like these! (I also soak the ground liver in the lemon juice first.) Try it!
I grew up eating liver and onions but then spent 12 years as a vegetarian (sometimes vegan) and then another 6 eating mostly vegan + fish. When we started eating meat again (due to health and of course the ability to choose pastured meats made a big difference for us) I avoided liver at first. Since then I’ve made it twice for my family and they loved it (liver+onions+bacon) but I don’t like it as well as I did as a child. As a child I would even order it in restaurants! Anyway, I have pastured beef liver in the fridge and we’ll be eating it soon; thanks for all the ideas!
Kimberly in So Cal recently posted..At The Health Food Store
We recently purchased half a side of beef. On the farmer’s recommendation, I had the liver ground with the beef. I can’t even tell it’s in there. We received about 70 pounds of ground beef so the approximate 10 pound liver is dispersed through approximately 60 pounds of meat. I also received pat of a liver from another cow as the purchasers did not want it. Those are laying in the freezer. I plan to grate and feed to the baby once he starts table foods.
Since my family is used to taking supplements, I cut our grass-fed liver into capsule size pieces ( which remain frozen) until they take them like a pill each morning.
Bacon???? In chopped liver (pate)? I never heard of that one. I must give it a try! We are Jewish (although not observant with dietary rules, so we eat pork) so I grew up with Jewish chopped liver. My daughter hasn’t cared much for it. I don’t like it as sauteed liver and onions. My husband is like the old Life Commercials with Mikey, “He’ll eat anything.” So I was trying to figure out some variety of what to do with liver and I found a few hide it in chili, ground beef, meatballs, etc. But I’m also interested in trying this very non-Kosher liver pate!!! 🙂