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Archive for August, 2009

Liver & Other Organs

August 7th, 2009 3 comments

I thought there would be lots of liver recipes for people on the SCD or GAPS diet. Liver is so healing and provides so many nutrients, I thought everyone must be eating it! Well if they are, they aren’t sharing too many recipes. A quick Google search “SCD liver recipe” doesn’t turn up much. When looking for regular liver recipes I always see that flour is used for coating the liver, which is not SCD legal. So here I will post all my liver recipes in hopes that I can help another SCDer who’s trying to eat this food. I don’t always specify what kind of liver to use, because to me they all taste the same. So use whichever type of liver you have access to.

Here are my favorite recipes so far (in order of preference):



Liver Pate with Cranberries

0.5 lbs (1 cup) liver
1 small onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic
1 bay leaf
1 tsp white pepper
1/4 tsp thyme
1/2 cup water

1/4 cup butter
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt

1/3 cup dried cranberries, sweetened in apple juice or honey

Soak liver for 1+ hour in lemon juice. Rinse well.

Add liver, onion, bay leaf, white pepper and thyme to a saucepan with water. Cook at a simmer for a few minutes until liver is mostly cooked. Set aside and cool.

Add liver and onions to a blender or food processor. Add butter, salt and pepper and pulse until smooth. Mix in cranberries by hand.

Scoop into small dishes and cool in refrigerator. Serve on slices of cheese.



Beef Heart, Bacon, Butter & Onions

1 beef heart, cut up into cubes, remove stringy tissue
6-10 slices bacon (nitrite-free)
1 onion
2 tbsp butter
garlic
salt & pepper

Cook bacon in a cast iron skillet. Once done, set aside and cut/break into pieces. Place in a large dish.

Sprinkle salt, pepper and garlic over beef heart pieces. Cook heart in bacon grease left in the skillet. Add to bacon pieces and toss.

In a separate pan, saute onions in butter. Once done, add to bacon & beef, toss to mix.

Note: you can cook the onion with the beef heart in the bacon grease, but I prefer cooking separately in butter, because nothing is better than onions in butter.


Fresh Liver
I got some inspiration from this recipe – Chicken Liver Pepper Fry (aka best liver recipe ever) – to use cilantro with liver. Fresh cilantro has a strong enough flavor that it really masks the livery taste.

0.5 – 1 lb liver
1 large tomato
1 small onion
1 clove garlic
big handful of fresh cilantro
3 tbsp butter
lemon juice to cover liver + 1 tbsp
sea salt & pepper

Soak liver in lemon juice for a few hours or all day. I have soaked it for 30 minutes once and even that helped remove some livery taste, so don’t skip this step!

Drain liver and cut into small bite-sized chunks. Sprinkle with sea salt and pepper.

Chop tomato and onion into large chunks. Melt butter in a pan over medium heat and add tomato and onion. Saute a few minutes. Add liver and saute until almost done. Add cilantro and 1 tbsp lemon juice and saute until just wilted. Remove from heat and serve.


Liver in Tomato Sauce

1 lb liver
1 can crushed tomatoes or 4-5 large tomatoes chopped
1 onion
1/4 cup chicken broth
2 tbsp fresh rosemary
2 tbsp fresh oregano
2 cloves garlic
salt and pepper
butter

Heat butter in a skillet. Saute onion until light brown. Add tomatoes and herbs and simmer a few minutes. Add liver and cook briefly so that it’s still pink inside.


Liver and Onions
Basic recipe for liver.

1 lb liver
2 large onions (or more)
butter
pepper
sea salt

Heat butter in a large skillet, add the onions and saute 5 minutes. Add the liver, pepper and salt, saute until liver is almost done (still some pink inside).


Chopped Liver

1 lb liver
2 large onions
3 hard boiled eggs
butter
pepper
sea salt

Cook eggs ahead of time. Heat butter in a large skillet, add the onions and saute 5 minutes. Add the liver, pepper and salt, saute until liver is almost done (still some pink inside). Let cool a bit and then put liver and onions in a food processor. Add eggs and process to desired consistency. You can have this chunky, or completely smooth.


Coconut Fried Liver
This was actually good, but a bit dry on its own. So I added some tomato to give it more moisture.

1 lb liver cut into large chunks
1 onion
1 tomato
1/4 cup coconut flour
1 egg
sea salt and pepper
3 tbsp coconut oil

Heat 1 tbsp coconut oil and saute the onion and tomato. Once finished put onion and tomato in a dish aside.

Beat egg in a small bowl. Put coconut flour in another bowl. Dredge the liver pieces first in egg then coat in coconut flour. Sprinkle pepper and salt on all the liver. Place aside.

Heat 2 tbsp coconut oil and fry the coconut pieces. You can do this in batched if needed. Once finished, place atop the onion and tomato mixture and serve.

Categories: Main Dish, Recipes Tags: ,