A couple of big ol' faggots nestled in a pile of rainbows.

Seriously.  Happy NY pride everyone!  The name of the dish "faggot" comes from “fegato” which is Italian for liver.  Basically it’s a big wad of liver, as you may have guessed.  Faggots are often made with bacon and some of the more less commonly used organs of various livestock. This is a basic faggot recipe because I couldn’t get my hands on any venison heart or pork belly or anything of that nature.  Not for lack of trying. Let's just say I livened up a few butcher's days. So enjoy these basic faggots any old time.  Hell, bring ‘em around at Thanksgiving.  Nothing says family fun like a baker's dozen of faggots at the dinner table.  I hear your grandfather loves them.  Anyway, you need:

1 lb of veal liver

Sage

Bread crumbs

A medium yellow onion

White rice (not parboiled, it makes the color less vibrant)

Food coloring

Beef stock

Total cost: $10 - $20

Bring some water to a boil and add however much rice you feel like making. Reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes, stir, remove from heat, and set aside.

Chop about a cup of onion as coarsely or finely as you’d like.  Mix with 6 oz of bread crumbs and set aside.

Savor this step.  The hurt is coming.

Set the liver on a clean cutting surface.

You need to get this minced.  Liver is a BITCH to chop.  To make it easier, you have to peel off the membrane on the liver.  Trust me, its gross but it’s worth it.

I don’t have a mincer.  If you do just use that.  If you don’t you can mince it with a sharp knife while pretending that you’re in a happy place.  Start by chopping it into strips.  Remove any veins you find. Trust me, you will know them when you find them. On the plus side, after the initial chopping is done, the liver itself is soft enough to rip and knead by hand to make it into small pieces.  I would like to take the time to mention that this process is making me look back on the tripe recipe with fondness.  I have to wash my hands every time I want to use the camera or handle anything and it smells like cat food.  It also looks like cat food.

As my friend pointed out, that’s to be expected from an organ that filters toxins out of the blood.  I honestly felt kind of sick a few times and it made my friend lose her appetite at one point.  I don’t wanna put you off of all the joys that faggots have to offer, I’m just giving you a heads up.

Dump the liver into the bread crumbs, add 4 tsp of sage and mix it all together.  Kneading it by hand worked better for me than a spoon.

Roll the mixture into 8 small balls and place in an oven safe dish.

Pour a can of beef stock in the dish and put a pat of butter on top of each faggot.

Cover with foil and bake for 15 minutes at 350.  Afterwards, take the foil off and bake another 15 minutes.

While that’s cooking you can make the rainbow rice.

Put a bit of rice into a resealable bag and put some food coloring on it.   

Mush the rice inside of the bag to distribute to the food coloring.   

I'm sure I don't have to tell you how to make orange and purple from your standard red, yellow, green, blue food coloring pack.

When the faggots are done, serve them on the rice and spoon some of the broth over them.

I think this is the best picture I've taken so far.

It’s like a liver meat ball.  The onion adds a nice extra bit of texture to it.  If you like liverwurst, as I do, you’ll definitely like this. I’m reminded a bit of pate.  I don’t know if rice was the right choice of side dish, I think mashed potatoes might have been better.  Not because they taste bad together, but the gravy doesn’t absorb into the rice as it would with potatoes.  All in all, these faggots were a nice addition to my day.  By the way, the more you let them marinate, the better they taste and they're good with spaghetti sauce.

Well, I’m off to the city today to see the parade and meet some friends.  If any of you are planning to join the festivities remember to stay on the charming side of drunk and the right side of the law.  Happy pride, huzzah for NY legalizing gay marriage and stay queer!

Fried Tripe

I’ve decided to dive head first into the wide world of offal and I sincerely hope you pictured that in your head.  Tripe is eaten pretty much everywhere in the world, so it must be at least palatable.  I’m hesitant to try it, but I've enjoyed liver and pate in the past so I guess it’s not so different…aside from the attached stigma I mean.  If nothing else, you can’t say tripe isn’t versatile.  There are a billion different recipes for it.  Between my own laziness, and the fact that I recently inherited what can only be described as an irresponsible amount of bread crumbs from my old roomies, I think a simple fry recipe would be good.  

You need

Beef tripe: Tripe is inexpensive to the point of being worrying.

Flour

Bread crumbs: Seriously, they gave me 3 full canisters of bread crumbs.  

Total cost:$1 - $10

This smells kinda like cat shit.  I'm not kidding.

Now the hell of it, aside from smelling like cat shit, is that you have to boil tripe for a long ass time to tenderize it.  Tripe is really tough and hard to digest so people with digestive disorders and gout should steer clear of this.  Prior to cooking, it also has to be cleaned.  I got mine from a store and I'm sure it was cleaned before it was packaged, but better safe than sorry.  Improperly prepared tripe is terrible for you and dangerous to eat.  Submerge the tripe in cold water and let it soak overnight.  Change the water frequently and scrub off any stuff clinging to the tripe.  Again, there weren’t any nasty things on mine and the color was fine, I’m just being cautious.  

Anyway, once that’s done, toss it into a big pot of water and bring it to a low boil.  You can spice it if you want.  Toss in a bay leaf or some nutmeg or whatever.  Apparently you can make good stock out of tripe, but frankly I just don’t want to.  Cover it and let it boil until the tripe is tender.  Depending on the type of tripe and how big the pieces are this can take between 1 and 6 hours.  Mine was honeycomb tripe cut into thin strips so this took me about 2 hours.  

This smells a bit like someone vomited stomach acid into a bowl of warm saltwater.  Again, I'm not kidding.

 It’s tender enough when you can easily cut it with a kitchen knife.  Cut the tripe into strips if it isn’t already.  Mine are about the size of a finger.  I rubbed the stripes down with black pepper and salt.  Feel free to experiment with different spices, those two just seemed like the safest choices.

  

Using flour and water, make a thin paste to coat the strips.  Dip the strips in that and roll them in bread crumbs.  

Heat some oil in a skillet over medium heat.  If you’re not sure when it’s ready, put a drop of batter in the pan.  If it’s hot enough, the oil around it will start to bubble.

Fry each strip until both sides are golden brown, about 2 minutes per side.  Transport the finished strips onto some paper towels to drain.

Be honest, would you be able to recognize this as tripe?  Also it doesn't smell bad anymore.

Ok, I swear this is true:  it’s kind of like a cross between fried calamari and a mozzarella cheese stick.  Like calamari, it’s chewy and the meat itself has little flavor, but like the cheese it’s kinda ropey and soft.  By itself it’s fine, if a little boring.  Some Dijon mustard livens it up nicely.  Honestly, I could see this fitting in at a pub or grill quite nicely, provided that the name was changed or the locals were just really ok with tripe.  I'd like to experiment with more spices and maybe some different batters. This really surprised me.  Stay queer!