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Sacred Appetite is a great blog with the motto: “Restoring harmonious and healthy family meals”. Anna Migeon is the author and offers lots of information for feeding a family–especially if some members are on the picky side.
If you have read here much or looked at my menu plans you may have noticed that we have some interesting foods on a regular basis. Foods that just a short year ago I would have never imagined myself cooking or eating. We have eaten grass fed beef liver, organic chicken livers, beef heart, antelope heart, and beef tongue. And each time we try one of these ‘organ meats’ we have been surprised by how good it tastes.
Beef liver was the easiest for us since both Joe and I ate that growing up and liked it (well Joe liked it, I didn’t so much as a child but do now). Chicken livers seemed like an easy progression so kind of on a whim I placed a bulk order a few months back through Azure Standard- my bulk order was 20 pounds.
Let me tell you that is alot of chicken livers!
We eat them as Chopped Liver or Pate usually but have tried them a few other ways (Chicken Livers in Mushroom Sauce was very good). I was excited when Anna posted her recipe for Spinach Crepes Bernoise. The recipe as is looks delicious but I can never leave well enough alone so I changed it a bit.
I wanted to be able to soak the flour in the crepes (see why here) so using the recipe Anna listed and using ideas from this recipe by Passionate Homemaker, I came up with the following recipe.
Soaked Spinach Crepes
1 1/2 cups buttermilk (could use kefir)
1 1/2 cups milk
2 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 package frozen spinach (10 ounce box)- thawed
Additional 1/2 to 1 cup of milk
4 eggs
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
Sprinkle of nutmeg
6 tablespoons melted butter
Mix buttermilk, milk and flour together in a bowl. Cover with a cloth and set on counter for 8-24 hours.
Stir the flour mixture. Put the spinach in your blender and add a little of the additional milk. Puree until smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, running the blender after each addition. Then add the salt and nutmeg and the flour mixture to the blender (note: I could not fit all of the soaked flour in the blender. I processed in batches). Blend to combine well. Pour it all back in your bowl and stir it up (especially important if you couldn’t fit all the flour in). At this point, your crepe batter should be like a thin pancake batter. If it looks too thick add a little more milk. Then add the butter and stir.
To cook: I used a small pan with a little butter in it. Using a ladle or measuring cup add a small amount of batter (I’d estimate I used about 1/4 cup) and tilt the pan to spread it around. The crepe needs to be very thin (I ended up adding a little more milk to the batter after the first crepe because it didn’t spread enough). Cook until lightly brown on one side then carefully flip over and cook about 30 seconds on the other side. Anna says that the first one never turns out and then they do. She’s right.
Anna uses fresh spinach and I would have too except for the spinach at the grocery store did not look good. To use fresh spinach follow Anna’s directions for the spinach. The crepes could be made ahead to help you with your time.
The Filling
4 Tablespoons butter
Around a pound of organic chicken livers, cleaned and dried
Sea salt and pepper to season
1/2 pound of mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
1/2 onion- minced
1 cup yogurt cheese (make using these directions)
1 cup kefir cheese (make using these directions)
4 teaspoon minced dill (or 2 teaspoon dried)
1/2 to 1 stick of butter- melted (1/4 to 1/2 cup)
Heat oven to 325 degrees.
In a heavy skillet melt 2 T butter. Add the chicken livers and saute until nicely browned on all sides but still slightly pink in the middle. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from pan to cool.
In the same skillet, melt 2 T butter and cook mushrooms and onions over low heat until very soft.
Mince the cooked chicken livers and place in a bowl. Add the cooked onions/mushrooms.
In a separate bowl mix the yogurt cheese, kefir cheese and dill.
Blend the cheese mixture into the mushroom mixture.
Fill the crepes with the mixture, roll up and place in a baking dish. Pour melted butter over the top. Heat in oven for about 10-12 minutes. You want them warm but you do not want to get them hot in order to preserve the probiotics in the cheese (I use the temperature of 117 degrees as what to keep it below, based on statements in Nourishing Traditions). Serve and enjoy!
These are nothing short of amazing. They are slightly time consuming. The crepes take a bit of time to cook (the recipe makes about 2 dozen if I remember correctly) and while cooking the crepes it is easy to burn them if you try to do too many things at one time (of course, that never happens to me). The crepes are delicious on their own or with a chicken filling.
If you are looking to add nutrient dense liver to your diet these are an excellent recipe to introduce it.
Do you enjoy organ meats? What is your favorite recipe for using them?
>What a fantastic recipe!! This sounds really quite easy (I mean, lots of steps, but nothing difficult) and delicious. I might try this next time I find myself with chicken livers. thanks!!
>This does look amazing! I'm so excited to try these! I have duck livers on hand, and some frozen spinach (I'm on a "cook only from the pantry/fridge/freezer) all month.
I'm grain free, though, so I'm wondering if i can do an egg crepe with this filling?!?!?
Are you sure it isn't livery?
Thanks for sharing, and I'm so glad to found a fellow "real food" thrifty blogger!
Carrie
Organicthrifty.com
>We always have lots of livers… and are looking for tried and true recipes for fixing them. Thanks for sharing this!
>Alyss,
Making the crepes is the biggest chore and the time consuming part. The original recipe from Anna has a few less steps than mine-no soaking and using store bought cream cheese so it would go together faster.
Carrie,
I couldn't resist eating some of the filling outside of the crepe. It was delicious on its own. I didn't think livery at all (but as a disclaimer, I love Pate). My 13 year old and 14 year old both ate some and declared it okay which is a very good review from them. Is an egg crepe a scrambled egg made into a crepe? If so then, I think that would be great.
I'm glad you found my blog! I just popped over and looked at your blog and can't wait to learn from you!
Stephanie,
Me too. Do you have a favorite liver recipe?
>I was going to get liver from Azure last go round. Did you see how much it is now?!?!? You got a STEAL when you ordered that stuff. Sometime on the menu this month I have fried liver for the boys & I. Thankfully I have the livers from when we did our own chickens. I will savour it.
Crepes look awesome, BTW!
>Millie, I am ashamed to say, that with all our pastured chicken livers, we haven't hit on a way to get them down yet. The best we've done is grind them up in to other dishes…. spaghetti sauce for one. My second daughter 'snuck' them into chili. We tried a pate recipe that was awful. Do you have your pate recipe posted?
>Michaela,
I think I paid just over $2 a pound for it. And it was a chunk of money since I bought 20 pounds. In my mind I didn't really think 20pounds would be as much, quantity wise, as it is. I'm beginning to wonder if we will ever get through it all! I bet your home grown are delicious.
Stephanie,
I love this recipe from Kimi the Nourishing Gourmet.
http://www.thenourishinggourmet.com/2009/08/5-dish-delicious-flavorful-pate-liver-at-its-best.html
I make a batch of it and then freeze it in small cups. I have found freezing it in about 1/4 cup portions is perfect for me, my husband and my baby (my teens only eat enough to show me that they are willing to try it). Oh and I don't use wine called for in the recipe – I use kombucha instead because we never have wine on hand but always have kombucha.
I have served this to guests who say they do not like liver and they loved it.
>We buy beef by the cow and it is processed by our farmer. I ask him to grind the liver and tongue into half of the ground beef. I use this gb for anything that will be seasoned (shepard's pie, spaghetti sauce, stroganoff, etc.). The kids and guests don't even know that it is in there.
I love the chicken liver pate recipe in NT.
Laura (Maine)
>Laura,
That is a great idea!
The pate recipe from NT looks yummy. I'll definitely have to try it.
>We like fried liver- and onions!
I am the most fond of calf liver. It doesn't have as strong of a taste to it.
I can't get organic livers… do you think it'd be safe to use store-bought for pate??? I really wanna see how my kids would do with it- just cuz I really like to shock them! 😉
>Donna,
Calf liver is Joe's favorite too. Fried with onions, mushrooms and bacon. It is very good!
To me, the store chicken livers have a metallic taste. I think they would be okay in small amounts but I think that you might find you need more spices to cover the flavor of them. US Wellness Meats does carry organic chicken livers http://www.grasslandbeef.com/Detail.bok?no=852
But they are often out of stock (and not cheap!).
>I spied these on your menu plan recently and have been plotting to make them ever since. For the filling, I used bacon instead of chicken liver, and they were very good. The strong flavor allowed me to use less filling per crepe. I also omitted the nutmeg, dill, and the soaking step, looking to Anna's version for simplifying the process.
Thanks for sharing this unique recipe!
>Aiming,
The bacon filling sounds wonderful! Anna's original recipe was perfect (I only added the soaking to help with eliminating that anti-nutrients) and definitely a quicker version. I love the flavor of the spinach in the crepes. So good!