Offal

[Toby]

Stuffed goose neck (collo ripieno dell'oca) -- goose neck skin stuffed with veal, goose liver, pistachio nuts, egg, parmesan served with a mayonnaise-like sauce made with grated hard-boiled egg, pecorino, parsley, and olive oil simmered in broth.

Or duck neck stuffed like a sausage (collo di anatra ripieno) -- stuffed with bread, duck liver, cheese... both Tuscan regional dishes.

This whole topic is just glorious.

[Wilfrid]

The Carlyle Restaurant, where Jean Drumonet - previously of Trois Jean - has taken over the kitchen, is offering a stuffed duck neck salad in its Bastille day menu. The rest of the menu is less adventurous.

[Adam Balic]

The last time I was in Florence I had stuffed chicken neck. It had been poached and sliced, with the slices surrounding the upright remains of the neck, with the head attached. Undortunately, the expanded stuffing was coming out of the chickens beak, so the overall effect was of a decapitated, vomiting chicken, frozen in mid-vomit. The other people at the table asked me not to face the chicken towards them, as it was making them uneasy. Tasted good though.

[Wilfrid]

Picked up a bag of cuchifritos last night from the Puerto Rican corner cafe at Houston and D. The highlight was thick sliced pork tongue, cooked to tenderness in a thin tomatoey broth. Small, glistening black, non-spicy morcillas. Couldn't face the pig's ears.

[Toby]

Adam, I'm drinking my morning coffee and I've reread your last post around six times, trying to picture that coming to the table. All I can say is Why? Was it really upright? Yuck. I have no problem leaving the heads on fish, sealing in the flavor, looking them in the eye, eating the cheeks, but this sounds visually disgusting. I buy fresh chickens and ducks in Chinatown, head and feet attached, and I save the feet for stocks, gumbos, but I always chop the head off and toss it right away.

[Jinmyo]

Adam, I like chicken neck too!

But this sounds a bit much. Glad it tasted good.

[Adam Balic]

Toby - yeh, I have seen better plated meals, but it wasn't that bad. Although the more I ate, the more I was sure that the chicken was looking at me.

[Toby]

(Help, I can't get "quote" to work) -- Regarding Wilfrid's aforementioned problem with the leaky bison balls -- In Innards and Other Variety Meats they say (after cleaning and rinsing) to parboil in salted water, 15 minutes for beef. On the other hand, this could be a problem peculiar to bison. (The bison guy at the market made a real point about how low in fat bison meat is, but I'd always read that Native Americans considered bison very rich -- you think this could be because of different grazing conditions or simply rich compared to other game and their probably low fat diet anyway?)

Another solution might be something I read on how to get rid of excess liquid in octopus, suggested for people who just can't hang their fresh octopi out to dry on the clothesline in the sun for a day -- put octopus in a dry pot after cleaning, and heat over a very low heat until the octopus has exuded all its liquid (about 45 min.).

[Wilfrid]

Thanks for the suggestions, Toby, which certainly sound quicker than my approach and therefore worth trying. I found the excess liquid problem in all the balls I have, er, handled - beef and lamb as well as bison. Is that sponginess, innit?

[firebellyfrog]

i must say that if it wasn't for the gloriousness of offals.. i wouldn't be married today... i have been in love before, but it wasn't until my husband, then boyfriend bought me a grade A lobe of foie gras on our second date, that i knew this would be a man that i could live with forever... the things liver can do to a girl...

on a different note, ever try the vietnamese dish of fertilized duck egg? or how about the diced cold duck blood with shredded lettuce and nouc cham? any one know where i could find a recipe for the last one?

[LaNiña]

Somebody emailed this to me today - from the Village Voice, no idea when:

"Loveliest Lamb Testicles - Café Shishkebab

The barbecued sweetbreads are way better than the testicles—which are a bit rubbery and frozen tasting—but, hey, I got your attention, didn't I? CAFÉ SHISHKEBAB is a serviceable Uzbeki café featuring budget charcoaled shish kebabs, very good bread lubricants like baba ghanoush and hummus, and killer french fries. The chicken tabaka, a garlicky bird crushed flat, is also the best in Brighton Beach, much better than the versions served at those tedious boardwalk establishments. -Robert Sietsema

414 Brighton Beach Avenue, Brooklyn 718-368-0966"

[Wilfrid]

Firebellyfrog, if you're posting from New York I can tell you where you can eat the cold duck blood and the fertilized eggs. I have not eaten the latter, but the former has its merits. It's taste and texture are what liver jelly would be like.

[stellabella]

i ate grilled and spicy sweetbreads at a turkish restaurant in london the other night. i kept spooning them into my mouth, in between bites of crunchy radish. the next morning i lay sodden against the pilllow, thinking about sweetbreads, wanting them again and again and again.

sweeetbreads rule.

[LaNiña]

I had some good grilled beef hearts last night at a Peruvian place in my 'hood. Marinated in something very garlicky, on wooden skewers, and charred nicely on the outside, tender inside. Served with a spicy cilantro-based dipping sauce. Muy bien.

[Wilfrid]

I finally got around to eating some goose intestines. They are on the menu at Congee Village on Allen St (as indeed is almost everything else you can think of). Geese have bigger guts than I expected. The intestines came not as tubes but as squares of floppy, rubbery, slightly chewy brown tissue. They were served over bamboo shoots. The dish was a little dry, but I eventually got into the texture aspect of it.

Congee Village is a good, inexpensive place to go for, er, odds and ends.

[LaNiña]

Wilfrid, try the marinated goose intestines at Funky Broome sometime. I like them the best there.

[Wilfrid]

Cooked blood. I just bought some. I assume it's pig's blood, as it was cheap, although it later occurred to me it could be that of a duck. It's a sort of jelly-ish cake. I have eaten duck's blood similarly prepared, over noodles, in The Malaysian Restaurant in NY's Chinatown.

Anyway, I am wondering if this can be used as an ingredient. What are its properties? Could I liquidize it? Will it become liquid if I melt it gently? I am thinking of Kristian's famous Finnish blood pancakes, an authentic poulet au sang or some kind of civet as dishes I might make.

Anyone ever worked with this stuff?

[Bouland]

I am thinking of Kristian's famous Finnish blood pancakes, an authentic poulet au sang or some kind of civet as dishes I might make.

I've generally avoided cooked or clotted blood in favor of fresh blood, which I use in my civets. In my case the blood is whisked into the sauce at the end of cooking off the heat. This has the effect of giving the sauce a dark mahogany color, a slight thickening, and a much richer flavor. Yum.

[Wilfrid]

Thanks, Bouland, and I agree - it's just that we have been having a bit of trouble getting fresh blood here in New York. Haven't exhausted all the options yet (all the legal ones, I mean ).

[Bouland]

We have been having a bit of trouble getting fresh blood here in New York.

I guess California has a few advantages... I can buy it at a half a dozen stores near my home.

[g.johnson]

We have been having a bit of trouble getting fresh blood here in New York.

I guess California has a few advantages... I can buy it at a half a dozen stores near my home.

Technical question: Do you know how they stop it clotting?

[Wilfrid]

Specially bred haemophiliac pigs?

[Kristian]

As far as Finnish blood pancakes, pudding and sausages are concerned, I fear that pre-cooked blood will not work unless you can actually liquidize it. It is essential that all the flour etc. is mixed in the blood and I cannot really see them mixing into blood jello that easily..

As far as getting fresh blood goes, aren't there any butcher shops near NY that one could order it from? Should not be that hard...

I don't know how blood clotting is prevented in blood that is meant to be eaten... I'll try to find out...

[AdamLawrence]

Re. stopping blood from clotting: Fergus Henderson (in his recipe for jugged hare) says that, when the hare is skinned, and the blood saved, you should mix a splash of red wine vinegar with the blood.

Now, given a helpful butcher, this shouldn't be too much of a problem in the context of furred game, even if you're not going to skin the beast yourself. But if you want pig's blood to make black pudding etc, seems to me a bit more problematic. I suppose if you've got blood on special order, they might do that at the slaughterhouse.

cheers

Adam

[Wilfrid]

Thanks guys. Must be somewhere you can get blood in New York, right? I might try liquidizing some of the cooked blood with red wine - that might give me the basis of a sauce for poulet au sang at least.