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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

New Potato Potato-Salad

May 15, 2015 By Lauren

potatosalad

It’s mid-May and Summer is already afoot:

Dandelions have gone to seed, lilac’s in bloom, strawberries redden and branches grow greener and evenings stretch longer and submerge us in blue.

These blue nights of late Spring and early Summer–described so beautifully by Joan Didion in her memoir— always invoke major nostalgia for me.  Nostalgia for past Summers and the places I spent them in and the people I spent them with; and even, oddly enough, for this coming Summer–which I think about so often that it sometimes feels as if it’s already gone.

chop chopchop

Lately, I’ve been getting ahead of myself.  All the growth of this season brings a sense of boundlessness, infinite possibilities.  There’s so much space within these blue nights and I find myself wavering between projecting too far into the future and retracing the past, often missing the little details of the present moment.

The little details which become currency for nostalgia, what is cherished, held close: the nacho dinners Emulee and I would make after a long, hot day of weeding on the farm,  salted hakurei turnips by the lake, a pickled egg and a glass of cider at Tandem’s counter, the ride-home with Kasia after symphony-in-the-park with reggae turned up and windows rolled down, light scattered across a patch of tall nettles, the knick-knack shelf in my grandma Stella’s living room, a jelly doughnut cut in half, home-made potato salad in a yellow bowl.

My nostalgia for the past reminds me that while attending to the future is undoubtedly important, engaging in the present is vital, as these are the moments, the little details that give, dare I say, meaning to our days.

shallots parsley

Last Sunday, some peonies really drove that message home.  One of my favorite flowers, I realized I was taking home the first bunch of the season and quite possibly the last one.  Their flowering season is short.  If I’d been looking too far ahead–toward this coming Summer–or too far behind, I might have missed them altogether.

Like I might have missed these first harvest, or new, potatoes of late Spring.

honey/mustard dressing

This new potato potato-salad is based on the memory of my grandma’s potato salad–the one in the yellow bowl.  It isn’t her recipe–she used mayonnaise and celery and sometimes apple in hers–but it reminds me of her and the summers we shared.

In French new potatoes are called delicatesses, a fitting name for these earthy-sweet and tender tubers.  A handful of red-skins, some shallots, some sage, a whole fistful of parsley and a tangy-sweet dressing make a salad that is, in my opinion, the perfect compliment to these extended twilight hours and all the space for picnics by the lake, BBQs in the yard, and new found little details they provide.

potatoweb-26

Print
New Potato-Salad

Ingredients

  • For the salad
  • 1 kilo potatoes, mix new + red-skin
  • 1/2 bunch parsley, minced
  • handful fresh sage, minced
  • 2 shallots, minced
  • pinch salt
  • For the dressing
  • 1/2 olive oil
  • 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons mustard
  • 1 tablespoon honey
  • pinch salt

Directions

  1. Scrub potatoes and chop into bite-sized pieces (in half for new potatoes, in quarters for red-skins). Place into large pot and cover with cold water. Add pinch of salt and place on stove on high-heat. Once water is boiling, reduce heat and let potatoes simmer for 15 minutes, or until tender. Drain and rinse in cold water.
  2. While potatoes are boiling, chop shallots and herbs and place in large mixing bowl. Make dressing by adding all ingredients to a jar, sealing and shaking like a wild-wo/man or until emulsified.
  3. As soon as you've drained and rinsed your potatoes, add them to the mixing bowl and pour over the dressing. (It's important to pour the dressing on while the potatoes are still warm). Mix everything together. Serve right away for the warm version or cover and keep in the fridge overnight for the cold-version.

Keeps in the fridge for 3-4 days, if well-sealed.

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Mes amis de Suisse:

Ce Samedi à Plainpalais il y a un évènement Art Sans RDV –c’est une expérience immersive à la rencontre de la plaine de Plainpalais et des oeuvres d’art qui l’habitent.  À 19h30 je préparerai le buffet pour l’inauguration de leur application mobile: des nori-rolls avec riz noir et pesto d’ortie/des betteraves/des carottes et des macarons de noix de coco et des amandes.

J’espere vous voir là-bas!

RDV

Filed Under: Plant, Recipes, Seasons, Sides, Spring, Vegetable Tagged With: delicatesse, newpotatoes, potatoes, recipe, salads, simple, spring, wapf

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