Barsak Chicken
Priamo Gregory
Offal (/ˈɒfəl, ˈɔːfəl/), also called variety meats, pluck or organ meats, is the internal organs of a butchered animal. The word does not refer to a particular list of edible organs, and these lists of organs vary with culture and region, but usually exclude skeletal muscle.[citation needed] Offal may also refer to the by-products of milled grains, such as corn or wheat.[1]
Depending on the context, offal may refer only to those parts of an animal carcass discarded after butchering or skinning; offal not used directly for human or animal consumption is often processed in a rendering plant, producing material that is used for fertilizer or fuel; or in some cases, it may be added to commercially produced pet food.[citation needed] In earlier times, mobs sometimes threw offal and other rubbish at condemned criminals as a show of public disapproval.[2]
In medieval times, "humble pie" (originally "umble pie") made from animal innards (especially deer) was a peasant food and is the source of the commonly used idiom "eating humble pie", although it has lost its original meaning as meat pies made from offal are no longer referred to by this name. The traditional Scottish haggis consists of a sheep's stomach stuffed with a boiled mix of liver, heart, lungs, rolled oats, and other ingredients. In the English Midlands and South Wales, faggots are made from ground or minced pig offal (mainly liver and cheek), bread, herbs, and onion wrapped in pig's caul fat.
Only two offal-based dishes are still routinely served nationwide at home and in restaurants and are available as pre-cooked package meals in supermarket chains: steak and kidney pie (typically featuring veal or beef kidneys), still widely known and enjoyed in Britain, and liver (of lamb, calf, pig or cow) and onions served in a rich sauce (gravy).
Brawn (the British English term for 'head cheese') is the collection of meat and tissue found on an animal's skull (typically a pig) that is cooked, chilled and set in gelatin. Another British food is black pudding, consisting of congealed pig's blood with oatmeal made into sausage-like links with pig intestine as a casing, then boiled and usually fried on preparation.
"Luncheon tongue" refers to reformed pork tongue pieces. "Ox tongue" made from the pressed complete tongue, is more expensive. Both kinds of tongue are found in tinned form and in slices in supermarkets and local butchers. Home cooking and pressing of tongue have become less common over the last fifty years.
Bleached tripe was a popular dish in Northern England (especially in South Lancashire), with many specialist tripe shops in industrial areas. Today in South Lancashire, certain markets (for example, in Wigan) may still sell tripe, but all the specialist tripe shops have now closed.[4]
In Norway the smalahove is a traditional dish, usually eaten around and before Christmas time, made from a sheep's head. The skin and fleece of the head is torched, the brain is removed, and the head is salted, sometimes smoked, and dried. The head is boiled for about three hours and served with mashed rutabaga/swede and potatoes. The ear and eye (half of a head is one serving) are normally eaten first, as they are the fattiest area and must be eaten warm. The head is often eaten from the front to the back, working around the bones of the skull. Smalahove is considered by some to be unappealing or even repulsive. It is mostly enjoyed by enthusiasts and is often served to tourists and more adventurous visitors.
Other Norwegian specialities include smalaftter, a traditional dish similar to smalahove, but instead of a sheep's head, it is made of lamb's feet. Syltelabb is a boiled, salt-cured pig's trotter, known as a Christmas delicacy for enthusiasts. Syltelabb is usually sold cooked and salted.
In Denmark, a version of liver pt known as "leverpostej" and used as a spread (often in an open sandwich on rye bread) is considered a popular dish. The most common main ingredients of leverpostej are pork liver, lard, and anchovies, but numerous alternative recipes exist. The 5.5 million Danes consume roughly 14,000 tons of leverpostej per year, the most popular commercial brand being Stryhn's.[6] Versions of brawn (often served on rye bread as an open sandwich with a garnish of cucumber slices or dijon mustard and pickled beetroot) and blood sausage (served pan-fried with muscovado) are eaten mainly during wintertime, e.g., as part of the traditional Danish Christmas lunch or "julefrokost".Heart is commonly eaten, either calf, cow, or pork. Grydestegte Hjerter is a Sunday dish of stuffed pork heart, served with carrots, brussels sprouts, and mashed potatoes.[citation needed]
Finland also has its own version of black pudding, mustamakkara (black sausage). There is also liver sausage, usually eaten as a spread on bread, similar to the Danish leverpostej. Liver is also eaten in various other forms including fried slices and minced liver patties. Liver casserole, traditionally made with minced liver, rice, butter, onions, egg, syrup, and usually, raisins used to be mainly a Christmas dish, but is now available and eaten all year round. Many traditional and modern game recipes use offal. One of the most popular offal dishes is verilettu (or veriohukainen or veriltty) which translates to blood pancake, a pan-fried thin bread-like snack traditionally enjoyed with lingonberry jam. Verilettu is common in Sweden and Norway, going by the name Blodplttar.
In Belgium several classic dishes include organ meat. Beef or veal tongue in tomato-Madeira sauce with mushrooms and kidneys in mustard cream sauce are probably the most famous ones. The famous "stoofvlees" or carbonade flamande, a beef stew with onions and brown beer, used to contain pieces of liver or kidney, to reduce the costs. Pork tongues are also eaten cold with bread and a vinaigrette with raw onions or mustard.
In Italy consumption of entrails and internal organs is widespread. Among the most popular are fried or stewed brains; boiled stomach (trippa), often served in a tomato sauce; lampredotto (the fourth stomach of the cow), boiled in broth and seasoned with parsley sauce and chilli; liver (stir-fried with onions, roasted); kidneys; heart and coronaries (coratella [fr; it] or animelle); head, eyes, and testicles of a pig; and several preparations based on chicken entrails. Pajata, a traditional dish from Rome, refers to the intestines of an unweaned calf, i.e., fed only on its mother's milk. Soon after nursing, the calf is slaughtered, and its intestines are cleaned, but the milk is left inside. When cooked, the combination of heat and the enzyme rennet in the intestines coagulates the milk to create a thick, creamy, cheese-like sauce. Pajata and tomatoes are often used to prepare a sauce for rigatoni. In Sicily, many enjoy a sandwich called "pani c musa", bread with spleen and caciocavallo cheese. In the Italian neighborhoods of Brooklyn, New York, where it is also commonly eaten, it goes by the name "vastedda,", which in Sicilian refers to the bread only. In Norcia and other parts of Umbria, pig's bowels are also cured with herbs, chili peppers, and spices, then dried and smoked to make a tough, spicy sausage in which the bowel, instead of serving only as the usual casing, is the main ingredient.
In Spain, the visceral organs are used in many traditional dishes, but the use of some of them is falling out of favor with the younger generations. Some traditional dishes are callos (cow tripe, very traditional in Madrid and Asturias), liver (often prepared with onion or with garlic and parsley, and also as breaded steaks), kidneys (often prepared with sherry or grilled), sheep's brains, criadillas (bull testicles), braised cow's tongue, pig's head and feet (in Catalonia; pig's feet are also traditionally eaten with snails), pork brains (part of the traditional "tortilla sacromonte" in Granada), and pig's ears (mostly in Galicia). There are also many varieties of blood sausage (morcilla), with various textures and flavours ranging from mild to very spicy. Some of the strongest are as hard in texture as chorizo or salami, while others are soft, and some types incorporate rice, giving the stuffing a haggis-like appearance. Morcillas are added to soups or boiled on their own, in which case the cooking liquid is discarded. They are sometimes grilled but rarely fried. Also coagulated, boiled blood is a typical dish in Valencia (cut into cubes and often prepared with onion or tomato sauce).
In Greece (and similarly in Turkey, Albania and North Macedonia), splinantero consists of liver, spleen, and small intestine, roasted over an open fire. A festive variety is kokoretsi (from Turkish kokore, Macedonian kukurek), traditional for Easter; pieces of lamb offal (liver, heart, lungs, spleen, kidney and fat) are pierced on a spit and covered by washed small intestine wound around in a tube-like fashion, then roasted over a coal fire. Another traditional Easter food is magiritsa, a soup made with lamb offal and lettuce in a white sauce, eaten at midnight on Easter Sunday as an end to the lenten fast. Tzigerosarmas (from Turkish ciğer sarması, meaning "liver wrap") and gardoumba are two varieties of splinantero and kokoretsi made in different sizes and with extra spices. In Turkey, mumbar, beef or sheep tripe stuffed with rice, is a typical dish in Adana in southern Turkey. Paa soup is made from lamb or sheep feet, except in summer.[8] If lamb or sheep head is added, it becomes Kelle Paa. Liver is fried, grilled, skewed and additive of pilaf. Liver shish can be eaten at breakfast in Şanlıurfa, Diyarbakır, Gaziantep and Adana. Brain can be fried or baked. It can also be consumed as salad.
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