Fifty shades of brown

Cat and I held our second offal cooking course in the local hotel kitchen (Tallhöjden).
Heart, liver and tongue were on the menu for five excited students.

Obligatory welfie ahead of course

 We started with a bit of background information about offal:

• Offal is not just organ meat such as liver, heart, lungs, kidneys, stomach... It also includes other odd bits such as tongue, cheek, tail, feet. The kind of stuff that your grandma used to eat but you no longer find in the supermarket shelves.
• Offal is cheap! When we switched to better quality meat - primarily freerange and grassfed - we needed to widen our repertoire of cuts to keep the bills down.
• Offal is the multivitamin of the animal - liver and heart are two of the most nutritious foods you can eat. CoQ10, iron, vitamins A and B, trace minerals, to name a few...
• Throwing away large parts of the animal is no longer an option for us! It isn't just about the waste of resources, it is simply unethical to kill an animal and not use as much as possible of it. (See note on "cat jar" below - we try to make use of EVERYTHING.)

Slicing liver - note the "cat jar" for the leftovers to the right

The aim of the course was to give the participants a few simple dishes to start their journey into "offal land" with.

• Beef liver pâté with butter, onion, garlic and various spices - very creamy and delicious if we may say so ourselves! 
• Fried lamb heart, thinly sliced and marinated in garlic, ginger and chili - my favourite every time. 
• Tongue - boiled as well as fried.

We added salad to the final dish to avoid too much of a meat overload.

The tasting session last time around was a bit too heavy on the meat, so we added in a bit of salad, sauerkraut and lingonberries to break up the brown on the plates.

To wash it all down, we made our students a shot of bone broth. Beige on brown is such an attractive combination...

Mr K with a plate full of brown (tongue, liver pâté, flash fried marinated heart, served up with a glass of beige (bone broth)

We'll see if we get around to developing the next level offal course sometime later in the year. Kidneys, brain and lungs, anyone?

Meat on a Budget / Budgetkött

Dinner was a bit unconventional today: beef tongue. We're constantly on the lookout for cheap cuts of meat and tongue is up there with heart and liver. The flavour is reminiscent of salt beef, consistency slightly more compact. 

Leave the handling to the less squeamish family members

The recipe went something like this (my friend Anna kindly provided the base :-)):

1.3 kg beef tongue (from a grass fed, happy cow)

20-30 black peppercorns

10 bay leaves 

2-3 tablespoons of salt

Sliced carrots, onions, garlic and fresh ginger (this is where I went off on a tangent...)

Cold water to cover the tongue

Add the tongue and spices to a sauce pan, cover with water. Bring to a boil. Let simmer for 2 hours, occasionally turning the tongue if it is not wholly covered. Let cool until you can handle it with your hands and take off the skin. You may have to use a sharp knife. Cut the tongue in half (one half being the tip of the tongue). Put the two pieces in a clean sauce pan and cover with the strained fluid, plus 3 more tablespoons of salt. Let rest for 2-3 days in a cool place, preferably longer.

Slice the bigger piece thinly and serve with mash and a spicy mustard or garlic mayonnaise. 

In this format it is easier to pretend it's just salt beef

Chop the tip of the tongue into small pieces to add to soup, broth, omelette, etc (it is slightly tougher). 

Next time I think we'll try to cure the tongue for a week before boiling, to make saltier. 

***PÅ SVENSKA***

Idag blev det tunga till middag. Kändes sådär lagom udda, och gott! Vi letar ständigt efter mer förmånliga köttdetaljer och tunga är ungefär i samma prisklass som lever och hjärta. Smakar ungefär som rostbiff/ salt beef, med lite mer tuggmotstånd. 

Receptet jag använde löd på ett ungefär så här (baserat på min vän Annas recept):

1,3 kg nöttunga (helst från en glad och gräsbetande kossa)

20-30 pepparkorn

10 lagerblad

2-3 msk salt

Skivad morot, lök, vitlök och färsk ingefära (här började jag visst bli lite extra kreativ, förlåt Anna...)

Kallt vatten för att täcka tungan

Lägg tunga och övriga ingredienser i en kastrull, täck med vatten. Koka långsamt i två timmar, vänd tungan då och då. Låt tungan svalna på skärbräda tills du kan dra av/ skära av skinnet. Dela på mitten i en tjock och en tunn del (tungspetsen). Lägg bitarna i en ren kastrull och slå över det silade spadet plus 3 ytterligare matskedar med salt. Låt stå svalt i 2-3 dagar, gärna längre. 

Skiva den större biten i tunna skivor och servera med rotmos och en stark senaps-/vitlöksmajonnäs. 

Hacka tungspetsen i små små bitar och ät i soppa, buljong, omelett, osv. 

Nästa gång tror jag vi testar ett tvärtomrecept och rimmar köttet i en vecka innan vi kokar det, för att få en saltare smak.