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Chicken Liver Spread

May 23, 2015 By Lauren

liver-plate

It’s time.  Time I introduced y’all to one of the most nourishing foods in ze whole wide world.  A food that, despite my qualms against the practice, I’m inclined to prefix with the word “Super”, yes, w/ a capital “S”.  It’s a food that’s easily accessible, no matter what part of the world you call home, and is even affordable, to boot.  A food that is often forgotten and is, if remembered, regarded with some, let’s just say, Apprehension w/ a capital “A”.

I’m talking about liver.  Yeah, that’s right.  Liver.

In many holistic health communities, I’ve found that the conversation surrounding liver can be confusing.

Take, for example, this conversation, which occurred two falls ago, during my first course of holistic nutrition, The Fundamentals of Nutrition, when we were studying vitamins–their functions in the body and the foods that contain them in the highest amounts.  We started with vitamin A and I noticed that, in our notes, the highest sources were all vegetables.

My hand shot up, as it was wont to do, “But isn’t liver the highest concentrated source of vitamin A?”

My teacher, a naturopathic doctor, shrugged, “Liver is the detoxification organ.  Eating liver is like eating all of the toxins the animal was exposed to.  I would never recommend it to anyone.”

“Why would anyone WANT to eat liver?!” A classmate toward the back of the room suggested.

Why, indeed.

But before we answer that, let’s attend to the big question, the one my teacher raised, first.  If the liver is the detoxification organ, isn’t it just a storage-house for toxins?

Short answer:  No.  Well, not exactly.

liver-herbs

Liver, the Long Answer

One of the liver’s many functions is to remove toxins from the bloodstream, so, yes, toxins do pass through it.  The keywords being pass through, as the liver doesn’t store toxins, but instead filters them, neutralizing them and making fat-soluble toxins water-soluble, enabling them to be removed via water-like substances (sweat, bile, urine).

This is how the liver works in a healthy organism, a healthy human or chicken or cow.  In an unhealthy organism, one that’s constantly exposed to toxins like herbicides, pesticides, growth hormones, the liver is overworked, unable to filter, to neutralize, to remove and instead toxins are, indeed, stored there–deposited in its fatty tissues.

This is one of the many reasons why finding liver from an animal that was raised traditionally–on pasture, organically–is super important.  A healthy animal = a healthy liver = a nutritional bonus for us all.

rye-bread

Nutrients in the Liver, the Long List

We’ve learned that a healthy animal’s liver isn’t storing toxins.  In fact, it’s doing the opposite:  it’s storing nutrients.  These nutrients are what enable the liver to do its detoxification thang and are the reason that many traditional cultures revere the liver as a profoundly nourishing food.

Liver contains all the fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K) and the fat to absorb them.  It’s the highest source of vitamin B12 and folic acid and contains the minerals iron, copper and zinc in abundance.  It contains the nutrient coenzymeQ10 which cells use to produce energy for cell-growth and maintenance and which has been shown to benefit cardio-vascular function.  It’s high in antioxidants, which help our own livers function properly, and it even contains an as yet unidentified “anti-fatigue” factor.

On board, yet?

liver-spread

I first got on-board the liver-train two years ago, while living in northern Michigan.  I’d had pâté in restaurants before but, even though I’d slaughtered chickens and helped to butcher of pigs (under the tutelage of Tuscan butcher, no less), the idea of cooking liver kind of freaked me out.

I was living in a place called the Tree House (s/o to those beautiful folk) and one night a friend, let’s call him JM Jesus, brought over some organic calf’s liver to cook over the bonfire.  We lifted it straight from its wrapping and dropped it into the cast-iron skillet.  The smell was sharp, like some super-funky cheese, and the taste grainy, as if someone had added sand to the pan.  I later learned that calf’s liver takes a bit more preparation, but needless to say, I wasn’t convinced.

A few months later, in Vancouver, I found myself living close to a high-vibe butcher and took home a whole chicken one afternoon, organ meats and all.  I decided to give liver another go, having heard that chicken liver was easier to prepare than calf’s.  I dropped the livers in a pan with a handful of herbs and a knob of ghee, added some sautéed onions and garlic and more ghee, and blitzed it all together.  The next day, I brought in my jar of liver-spread w/ a few slices of rye-bread and some mustard to share w/ my classmates. 

“Liverwurst!”  my friend N.Klamm exclaimed as we polished off the jar.  Creamy and savory and speckled w/ aromatic herbs: call it pâté, parfait, or just plain ol’ liver-spread, this simple recipe brought me aboard the liver-train and, let me tell you, I haven’t looked back since.

Print
Chicken Liver Spread

Ingredients

  • 1 onion, diced
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 300 grams chicken livers
  • 7 tablespoons + knob ghee
  • 2 handfuls of sage, thyme, rosemary, chopped thinly
  • pinch salt

Directions

  1. Add knob ghee to cast-iron skillet on medium heat. Sauté onions and garlic w/ big pinch of salt until well cooked, about 5 minutes, or so, stirring every so often. Remove from pan and place in food processor.
  2. Add chicken livers and herbs to pan. Cook for 3 minutes on each side--you want the insides to remain pink--if it's overcooked, the texture becomes grainy.
  3. Remove livers from pan and add to food processor. Add 4 tablespoons ghee and big pinch of salt. Blend until smooth.
  4. Place 3 tablespoons ghee in cast-iron skillet and heat on medium until melted. Take off from heat and let cool for a few minutes.
  5. While ghee is cooling, spoon liver spread into clean and sealable glass jar.
  6. Pour ghee on top of liver spread to create a "fat seal" that will allow your spread to stay fresh longer (about 1 week, in the fridge).

In Switzerland, as in many places, you can only buy frozen chicken livers. To defrost livers place in fridge overnight and make your spread the next morning. It is important to defrost the livers properly! Do not leave out on the counter to defrost.

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Filed Under: Animal, Chicken, Kitchen Essentials, Organ, Recipes, Sides Tagged With: liver, liverwurst, nutrientdense, organmeats, parfait, pate, recipe, wapf

Herbal Refreshment: Nettle Infusion

February 20, 2015 By Lauren

It’s high-time I come clean.  I could always go for an herbal refreshment.

Full disclosure:  I’ve hardly gone a single day this winter without one.

Y’all know what I’m talking about.  Herb, those hyper-potent, dense-green stems and leaves that can be found far and wide.  Weed, or “a plant in the wrong place” that grows in dewy patches during Spring.  Pot, with which you cook the fresh leaves into a nourishing soup.

nettlegreen

Sweet stinging nettle, you’re chronic.

(We were all talking about Nettle, right?)

Right.  Stinging nettle, or, for ye Latin lovers amongst us, urtica dioica, is a major herbal ally for me.  Yes, I said it, herbal ally, or an herb that you’ve found (or often enough, that has found you) to hold a kind of nourishment that is particularly beneficial to your kind of healing.

nettlebag

Nettle is an herb that has grown in every single country I’ve traveled.  Two summer’s ago, after discovering Susun Weed’s Healing Wise–a delightful take on the restorative qualities of seven common herbs that are sometimes called “weeds”–I learned all the ways in which nettle is oh-so-nourishing for me, specifically me with almost every one of my ailments–arthritic fingers, weak veins, eczema–addressed by this plant.  You can imagine my bemusement, when, last year, in Vancouver, I ended up renting a place with a garden with a planter filled with nettle, just as the seasons shifted to Spring (prime-time for the harvest of nettle’s stems and leaves).

During winter, when fresh nettle is a dream of sunnier days, I stay in touch with this ally through infusions of its dried leaves. Yes, infusions, not tea.  The herbal tea you’re thinking of–bag steeped for two, at most ten minutes–is a world’s away from this herbal refreshment: one steeped for a minimum of four hours with a resulting liquid that is dark and thick, nearing syrup, and containing all of the nourishing properties that that herbal tea (or cup of warm, flavored water) lacks.

nettleinfus Nettle is a profoundly nourishing herb.  It’s high content of nutrients like protein, Chlorophyll, vitamins A and K, the B-vitamins, Calcium, Magnesium and trace minerals Zinc, Chromium, Copper, Coblat, Iron, Sulphur, Silica are bioavailable meaning they’re readily absorbed by all soft tissue and working fluids in our bodies, increasing the ease and efficiency in which our circulatory, endocrine, nervous, urinary and immune systems function (Weed, 172).

Nettle is mainly known for its action as an antiallergenic, treating symptoms of hay fever, asthma and eczema, but its healing prowess is far vaster than that.  It is, as Weed terms, a kidney and adrenal ally, a digestive restorative–for ailments ranging from stomach ulcers to constipation to hemmorrhoids–, a respiratory strengthener, a women’s ally–in reproductive and hormonal systems–, an energetic changer–Weed purports that nettle’s sharp energy “cuts loose old patterns and reweaves connections” (Weed, 173).

Nettle is like many other healing herbs.  In order to benefit from its properties, you must consume a lot more of it than that herbal tea bag would lead you to believe.  Like the cases of other nourishing herbs–say, cinnamon or ginger (yep, they’re considered herbs)–one teaspoon or one bag of Yogi tea will not have the, in cinnamon’s case, blood-sugar stabilizing or, in ginger’s case, arthritis-healing effects that a larger amount, taken daily will.

Nettle is gentle.  On our bodies and on our Earth (because unlike say, cinnamon or ginger, it doesn’t have to be shipped to you from miles afar.  It doesn’t have to be cultivated.  It grows wild, perhaps even in your own backyard.)  In the way that it heals, on a cellular level, bringing change over a long period of time.  It’s exactly the kind of ally that I adore: daily nourishment from surrounding abundance.

nettlesteeped

I spent this past week in the mountains with my belle-famille for Geneva’s snow-break (a week-long holiday #Switzerland4thewin).  Of course, I brought along a bag of dried stinging Nettle to provide my in-laws with my favorite herbal refreshment.  My brother-in-law (salut Tanguy!) took a particular shine to it and I hope you do, too.

Print
Nettle Infusion

Ingredients

  • 1 ounce, or four full handfuls, of dried nettle

Directions

  1. Place ounce of nettles into a sealable glass vessel (I use a quart-sized mason jar).
  2. Pour hot water into jar until full and seal.
  3. Steep for 4 hours minimum, or overnight.
  4. Strain into clean jar and store in refrigerator (important, as the Nettle can spoil if left warm).
  5. Drink liberally throughout the day, everyday.

Do not add honey to your infusion. It's the opposite of pleasant.

Nettle is far tastier served cool than warm.

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I’ll leave you w/ this mountain artifact.  Happy herbal-allying, friends!

backcow

References:
Weed, Susun.  Healing Wise. Ash Tree Publishing, Woodstock, NY. 1989

Filed Under: Beverages, Herb, Kitchen Essentials Tagged With: herbalinfusion, nettle

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