A note from Sarah: The following is a guest post by Jamie Busch. My 16-month-old son loves this recipe, even without the fruit. I like to add a generous handful of strawberries to please my palate. What a wonderful way to get more liver into our diets!When my wife was pregnant with our daughter we thankfully stumbled upon the fabulous research of Weston A. Price. Soon we were experimenting with recipes from the “Nourishing Traditions” cookbook by Sally Fallon, as well as other traditional recipes from books like “Cure Tooth Decay” by Rami Nagel and "The Recipe for Living Without Disease” by Aajonus Vonderplanitz. Offal is one of the prized sacred foods for its nutrient density, and was universally utilized by women during childbearing years. We were open to trying it all: sweetbreads, tongue, kidney, brain, stomach. Most of the time I prepare the organ meat cooked, but there is one that I find to be more palatable and more potent in the raw: liver. So, I combined several different recipes for raw liver tonics and have developed a high-vibe breakfast smoothie that provides an amazing boost for the day - even my 2 year old daughter loves it! This is my twist on the classic Indian Lassi drink, enjoy!
Mango Liver Lassi
Time: 10 minutes.
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients:
1 cup milk kefir or yogurt
½ cup of milk
1 raw egg
2 tbsp. raw cream
1 raw chicken or duck liver
1 tbsp. raw honey
½ tsp. ground cardamom
¼ tsp. sea salt
1 cup fresh mango flesh (2-3 fresh mangoes, stoned and sliced)
Preparation:
Pour all ingredients into blender. Grind on low speed until liver is incorporated, then blend on high for a bit, strain into a glass and enjoy the surge!
About Jamie: My wife and I have "unschooled our stomachs" and model this lifestyle for our daughter - to be free from nutritional dogma and in touch with the power of Real Food. Now we can experience the gift of Life in every bite: whether it's a vegetable, mineral, insect, seaweed, milk, fruit, meat, nut, seed, herb, spice. I partner with local farms, applying the Permaculture philosophy of earth care, people care, and fair share. Via extensive travels by foot, car, bus, train, bicycle, and boat across the Globe and throughout the United States, I have learned about the unlimited potential of "food as medicine" and the joy of cooperating with Nature.
During the weekdays, I create innovative programs for people with Learning Disabilities, and after hours serve Real Foods to people through personal chef services, event catering, and hands-on workshops. I am a ServSafe certified Chef, and a member of Slow Food USA and The Weston A. Price Foundation. I am active in the local farm and garden movement in the NYC metro area. My favorite television show is "Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmernan" and one day will have my own show too!
This post is part of Monday Mania at The Healthy Home Economist, Fight Back Friday at Food Renegade and Real Food Wednesday with Kelly the Kitchen Kop!
About Jamie: My wife and I have "unschooled our stomachs" and model this lifestyle for our daughter - to be free from nutritional dogma and in touch with the power of Real Food. Now we can experience the gift of Life in every bite: whether it's a vegetable, mineral, insect, seaweed, milk, fruit, meat, nut, seed, herb, spice. I partner with local farms, applying the Permaculture philosophy of earth care, people care, and fair share. Via extensive travels by foot, car, bus, train, bicycle, and boat across the Globe and throughout the United States, I have learned about the unlimited potential of "food as medicine" and the joy of cooperating with Nature.
During the weekdays, I create innovative programs for people with Learning Disabilities, and after hours serve Real Foods to people through personal chef services, event catering, and hands-on workshops. I am a ServSafe certified Chef, and a member of Slow Food USA and The Weston A. Price Foundation. I am active in the local farm and garden movement in the NYC metro area. My favorite television show is "Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmernan" and one day will have my own show too!
This post is part of Monday Mania at The Healthy Home Economist, Fight Back Friday at Food Renegade and Real Food Wednesday with Kelly the Kitchen Kop!
19 comments:
I do love a breakfast smoothie and actually have all these ingredients, including a raw chicken liver....Oh I am so curious to try but something about liver in my smoothie sounds crazy!! Has anyone else tried it to share what it tastes like? Could I substitute another fruit for the mango, or is that the best one to go with the taste?
Hi Megan - Try strawberries. They seem to hide the flavor pretty well. If you are squeamish, try just putting in half or quarter of the liver the first time.
Hi, Sarah, I am glad to hear that you are okay with this smoothie - I've wanted to give liver smoothies a try, but have been too nervous to try! Does the liver incorporate really well into the smoothie with a cheap blender, or will there be lumps? Do you use pastured chicken livers? And have you tried any smoothies with beef liver? Sorry to flood you with questions - raw liver is kind of a big step for us!
Hi Danielle,
Raw liver is a big step for us too! The liver incorporates well with our blender (and I don't feel the need to strain the shake at all), but our blender seems to do a good job with most anything. I use pastured livers (they're not certified organic, but they come from a farm that I'm comfortable with). I haven't tried beef liver yet; it tastes stronger than chicken liver. If you're nervous, I'd recommend starting with a very small piece of liver, then work your way up. Strangely, my baby loves it even without fruit or cardamom (which tastes VERY strongly of liver, and I had to choke it down). But I think it tastes good once mango and strawberries are added.
Wow - what a great way to start your day! I've never heard to liver in smoothies. I'll have to give this a try, all the ingredients sound so delicious - it may be the perfect way to incorporate liver into my family's diet. They're getting a bit tired of pate :)
This is scary! LOL. But then again, I never thought I would put avocado and kale into a smoothie either. Maybe the next time we butcher our roosters, I'll keep the livers??? :)
Paula, absolutely you should save those livers! Even if you don't want to put them in a shake, you could try soaking them in some yogurt or kefir for a few hours (that really mellows out the flavor) and then saute in lots of butter for a few minutes (until still pink inside). Delicious that way!
I do something similar with beef liver. I grind the liver first and freeze it in ice cube trays. Then I add a cube or two to my shake, along with a frozen green veggie cube and a frozen orange veggie cube. I use a frozen banana usually - it sweetens it wonderfully.
http://frugalcrunchychristy.blogspot.com/2010/10/grits-and-smoothies-breakfast-of.html
Great ideas, Christy!
Hey sarah! Just discovered your blog and I am newly inspired to continue in our GAPS endeavors. We have recently really been slipping because of my laziness to prepare food, while we've steered away from gains, dairy and sugar, we have NOT been exclusively eating whole foods! We have reaped the consequences as well, so THANK YOU!
Also, I was wondering if you could do some more posts specifically addressing those picky 3yrolds! I have a 3yrold as well who today drank only the broth of our delicious beef and vegetable soup... He definitely goes without dinner 2-3 nights/week, and wakes up starving in the morning sometimes eating FOUR eggs for breakfast. He is also still very much wanting sweets, though we've been on the diet for about 4mos now he asks for fruit constantly, or something we put honey or fruit in to sweeten...
Thanks!
Hi Leslie, welcome! Yes, I will write some more posts geared towards kids. I've had some on the backburner for awhile, but I'll bump them up!
I love it! This is way beyond my liver/kefir morning smoothie. Can't wait to try it!
Do you need to freeze the liver first, or do you feel that it's safe without freezing?
I would definitely freeze it first to kill any pathogens.
A lot of changes can be seen as of now.
Thanks for this Sarah! I just scored several pounds of fresh raw liver from pastured chickens at a local farm. So excited to try adding the liver to my smoothies!
I had to reply when I saw your post because you just described my son exactly! The broth, the dinner skipping, the massive egg refuel in the morning, crazy.
I tried this with the following modifications due to what I had on hand and the difficulty in obtaining raw cream:
1 mango flesh, 2 frozen, ripe bananas, 1/4 tsp cardamom, 1/8 tsp sea salt, 3/4 c. water, 1 c. yoghurt.
I used 1/2 of a chicken liver originally and the flavor, color, and texture were great. No strange taste and the color was mango orange. In fact, I probably could have left out the honey because with the bananas and honey it was a little too sweet. After drinking some of it, I decided to try the rest of the liver which probably would have been fine originally but this time had less ingredients with which to mix. So the color was redder (not passable as mango but not bloody either), there was a very slight aftertaste of something different.
I am new to all of this so I am not sure why the raw liver and especially why the raw egg. But, the recipe was delicious.
Raw liver and egg yolks are wonderfully nutritious. Cooking can destroy some of those nutrients (although those foods are still very healthy when cooked as well).
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