10 offal dishes that aren't awful

Offal isn't awful. Instead it's downright delicious. I was reminded of this when I considered what kinds of meat I'd rather eat at a restaurant. If there's something that's not muscle, I usually order it in preference to muscle tissue. While muscle is nice when cooked well, it somehow lacks flavour compared to organ meat. I've listed a selection of my favourites below:

1. Seared calf's liver

Delicate, tender and rich, I think seared calf's liver goes best with something sweet sour and tangy - caramelised onions in balsamic vinegar, maybe. And with some mashed potato (hold the butter). I like mine browned on the outside and pink in the middle. Given that the stuff is generally sliced quite thin, it's hard to get it done perfectly.

2. Devilled kidneys

My favourite starter at Canteen. This is lamb kidneys in a spicy sauce, a dish created by the Victorians before they deigned to eat chillis. The heat comes from cayenne pepper and grain mustard, and can be very hot indeed. Of course you can add double cream in to temper the spiciness, making the dish richer and more decadent. The kidneys need to be slightly pink on the inside to preserve their flavour.

3. Haggis

Robert Burns called this the "grand chieftain o' the pudden race". Goes great with whisky (as to which one, maybe I'll do a special set of tasting experiments to find out. Sheeps heart, lungs and liver, mixed with onion, oatmeal and fat, boiled in the sheep's stomach. Very peppery and gamey, as offal should be. Not too keen on the neeps and tatties though, the ones I've had don't have enough butter. In fact, they could be improved by the addition of double cream and Reblochon.

4. Beef tripe noodles

It's been so long since I've had these it's not funny. There are as many versions of this dish as there are beef eating cultures in Asia, but my favourite comes from Soong Kee, a famous noodle stall in Kuala Lumpur (it used to be a treat when I was a kid, despite the horrifically filthy state of the shop). Wantans, minced beef, beef balls, and slices of beef stomach on just scalded, soft flat rice noodles. Yum. But for some reason, no one else seems to like the version with tripe...

5. Tête de veau

Calf's head in French. I've had it twice, and Racine's version was better. Consists of the brain and the pieces of the head (some versions substitute the sweetbreads - thymus gland - and / or the tongue), gently poached in broth for 5 hours, then served with sauce ravigote (Dijon mustard, roux and capers). I've decided not to eat this any more, as it's probably a bad idea to eat bovine- and sheep-derived nervous tissue. It was good though.

6. Pressed pig's ears

I first had these in Shanghai. In the Shanghainese version the ears are de-haired, flattened out, braised in wine and stock, then pressed into a sort of terrine. Once set (from the gelatine in the ears), the terrine is sliced into attractive stripey pieces. Fergus Henderson of St John in London does a Western version, but I've not been to his restaurant yet.

7. Heart churrasco - beef and chicken

Brazilian churrasco is one of the great barbecue traditions of the world. There are a number of churrascarias in London which I find quite tasty, although those in the know say that they're terrible. My favourite is beef or chicken heart, especially done in rodizio style where the waiter turns up at the table with a huge skewer and slices off portions. Heart is very very tasty and tender, because heart muscle fibres are shorter, and are interconnected with each other. The striations in heart are much smaller, and the meat is more pleasantly textured.

8. Tripe Oporto style

More stomach, simmered with chourico (Portuguese chorizo) and beans. The helpings in Portugal are huge, and the restaurant we visited bulked out the dish with veal shank. Needless to say, we couldn't finish it. Unfortunately, London lacks a large-enough community of tripeiros (tripe-eaters, natives of Oporto) for this dish to be easily available.

9. Pig stomach soup

Hokkien comfort food, something to strengthen my constitution while growing up. It's closely related to pig innards congee, given to invalids and hungry children by my very unhealth-conscious grandmother. The intestines and stomach are boiled with pork and lots of white pepper to create a spicy offally liquid (see here for a namby-pamby version using chicken, not intestines). For the congee, you put the boiled offal into the congee and accentuate with cubes of deep-fried lard and / or fried intestines. Excellent stuff.

10. Chicken offal yakitori

One of the best uses of chicken guts ever! Gizzard, liver, sometimes tongue (or even testicles), grilled on bamboo skewers. Much more tasty than the standard chicken breast yakitori, which requires addition of onion to make it worth eating. This is my favourite yakitori bar (unfortunately, it's not really an izakaya).


There are so many other offal dishes I haven't mentioned, so I will here: pig's blood soup, fish head curry, duck's tongue, ox tongue, Chinese liver sausage on rice, sup gearbox (warning, spinal cord tissue!), Sicilian guasteddi (beef spleen sandwiches), brawn, fried duck intestines etc etc.

Don't waste meat. Eat offal whenever you can. Muscle is boring, except when it's cardiac muscle.