Hi Paleo people

I notice that in some of the forums and threads, including Paleo and Atkins; people are looking for ways to get more saturated fats.
Here’s a couple of simple but tasty traditional Australian recipes from the times when Australians were lean and fit and worked on the land. Of course nowadays they tend to be fat and flabby through eating oh so healthy 98% fat free stuff.

The recipes require pure beef dripping (pure rendered beef fat). Anyone from UK and the old empire knows what dripping is, I think Americans call it tallow, but that could be something different. Here it comes in blocks the same way as butter, from Safeway etc. Or you can make your own by very gently frying strips of beef fat for about 2 hours then drain it into a bowl.
In both recipes if you sometimes do a little bit of a starch cheat, you can use some gravy thickener of your choice, conscience permitting!

LAMBS FRY AND BACON
(still popular in Pub lunch menus)

500g (1 lb) lambs liver, thinly sliced
250g (1/2 lb) fatty bacon , diced
medium onion – spring onions, shallots, scallions are good
teaspoon tomato paste
black pepper
tablespoon dripping


Fry the finely chopped onion and the bacon in dripping until golden.
Throw in the slices of liver a few at a time; stir everything in together until the liver is browned.

Transfer to covered pan with ½ cup water, pepper and tomato paste; simmer for about 10 minutes until the liver is cooked through. If you prefer thicker gravy, cheat with gravy browning or whatever. Goes great with steamed green cabbage.


STEAK AND KIDNEY

1kg (2 lb) stewing steak, diced
1 large beef kidney, trimmed and diced
2 onions, finely chopped
at least 1 tablespoon dripping
salt, pepper.

In a large pre-heated covered saucepan, just fry the steak, kidney and onions in the dripping until they are just seared, add salt, pepper and maybe ¼ cup water and simmer as slowly as possible for at least 2 hours. 3 is usually ideal. The trick is to stop anything sticking (give it a stir every half hour).

Usually used as a filling for pies and puddings, it’s good as is.



Both recipes also benefit from the use of one or two beef stock cubes such as the famous British “OXO” cube.


(this message also posted in recipes forum)

Cheers

Michael Gardner
Queensland
Australia

Michael, thanks for posting those wonderful recipes! I'm going to make the liver one very soon!

I'm going to make the steak and kidney, My nanny used to give us that and all kinds of fish, blood pudding etc. she lived to 94 and sharp as a tack.


Diane

Michael:
Not being familiar with cooking organ meats such as hearts and kidneys, your recipes are a godsend.

Re: Steak and Kidney recipe. Do you need to keep adding water to prevent it from sticking. 1/4 cup water for 3 hours doesn't seem like very much. But I will definitely try this. Sounds yummy!

Hi, Hellistile:

My experience with all sorts of stews and casseroles is that provided you use a pan with a tight fitting lid, a lot of liquid comes out of meat and onions like you wouldn't believe! So 1/4 cup is usually heaps. Of course in my pre paleo days I would just thicken up this liquid with cornstarch or gravy mixture, but a more 'paleo' method would be to add tomato paste (triple concentrated) or even some sun dried tomatoes. I bet our ancestors went around with bags of dried stuff like fish and jerky, and probably dried fruits.

Happy cooking!

Michael Gardner

Hi Michael
Thanks for the recipes!! These are great. I am going to Brazil on the 10th with my hubby and two of our friends. The wife is from Brazil and her family all lives down there. They have huge barbecues by the beach and she was telling me that they don't even worry about high fat down there.

When i go to foreign countries I love to see what foods they have in the supermarkets - that tells you alot about the people. In Prague - they had alo9t of good fresh food - whole foods - alot less processed, pre-packaged foods and alot of the girls were thin - like models - they didn't even bother with low fat eating. And if you were to tell a Frenchman to eat low fat and sugar free foods and diet foods, he would probably have a fit!!!

Thanks again for the recipes - they sound great.

Michael:
Made the steak and kidney stew this weekend and it turned out perfect (yummy - added mushrooms though because I add mushrooms to anything I can because I LOVE them).

Now all I need is a good recipe for chicken hearts. Any suggestions?

Hi, Hellistile

You must be telepathic.. I just cooked a yummy beef heart casserole but it would probably work for chicken hearts, using chicken stock cubes instead of beef stock cubes.
I served it to my 2 teenage boys (with mashed potatoes and steamed veg .. they insist on the spuds!!). Asked them what the meat was, and they suggested "beef ?" so I told them that it was heart of ox.. the warrior's food.
They loved it.

Beef heart casserole:

2 small beef hearts (total 3 to 4 lb)
2 large onions or 3 bunches green onions
3 large cloves garlic
large red pepper
2 rashers bacon
1/2 lb mushrooms

2 english oxo cubes (they are quite large, substitute 6 small cubes of other stocks)
splash of chinese cooking wine or sherry
Tomato paste
pepper, oregano etc
olive oil or beef fat
..........................................

Trim hearts of all stringy bits including any 'net' of fat and fibres around the outside.

Cut each heart in 2. Slice into quite thin slices.

In a frying pan, melt 1 tbsp beef fat or equiv olive oil

Sear the heart strips, add chopped onion garlic & chopped bacon and fry until all golden

Place in tight lidded pan, add crushed stock cubes and a splash of wine and simmer very slowly for 2 hours. No need to add extra liquid.

In frying pan, melt additional tbsp fat or oil, and fry finely sliced pepper and mushrooms until soft.

Add to casserole and simmer 15 minutes.

At this stage there should be quite a lot of liquid in the pan, add tomato paste until gravy is thickened to your liking. Add pepper, herbs etc to taste. Simmer for about another 5 minutes to blend flavours.

The peppers and mushrooms are added last otherwise they would cook away to nothing.

At this stage ATKINS people could add sour cream ("sob, sob!!")


Hope this works with the chicken hearts (apparently turkey hearts are more beefy)


Cheers


Michael Gardner

Thanks Michael. Will try this when I'm on holidays. I don't have much time to cook unfortunately. I just wish natural whole products were more readily available here. Can't even get lard that isn't hydrogenated so have to buy coconut and olive oils to cook with. I can get free range chicken and bison only. Lamb (in all forms) is readily available (due to the high arab population here) but my body rejects all lamb (can't even tolerate the smell) so I can't eat it. Sorry for the rant but it is very frustrating getting the food I need. Buying supermarket meat makes me gag just thinking about it but I may have no other choices. NeanderThin relies heavily on meat and without it there is no diet. Thanks for listening.