From Argentine to German to Russian cuisine, where to find international takes on offal.
In the first part of this handbook, we described organs and other variety meats by biological function and culinary usage. Here we recommend types of restaurants across the United States most likely to serve offal. These are categorized by ethnicity and organized alphabetically. So if you want to do some organ eating, pick up your knife and fork and head for these types of restaurants in your area.
Argentine — Denizens of this elongated South American country are meat obsessed, a condition most readily visible in the grilled meat assortments known as the parrilladas. These opulent collections of cow parts prominently feature three forms of offal: the small intestines, known as chinchulines; blood sausages scented with cumin; and sweetbreads, or mollejas (shown). Kidneys occasionally make an appearance in mixed grills or presented as an appetizer. Lengua en escabeche (pickled tongue) is another popular starter, often dressed with the popular national condiment of chimichurri or heaped with pickled onions and peppers.
Bolivian — In this country high in the Andes, organs are plentiful and usually either spit-cooked over flame or incorporated into soups and stews. Jolke is a rich kidney soup yellowed with turmeric; ranga, a beef tripe and potato soup in the same vein. Tongue is stewed to death in aji de lengua and then served over rice in its gravy. Borrowing a recipe from Peru, chunks of tenderized beef heart are cooked over charcoal in anticuchos, but instead of being served with a yellow hot-pepper sauce, the Bolivian version irrigates the thin-sliced muscle with a coarse peanut puree. Finally, Spanish cooking provides inspiration for a vinegary pig foot and head cheese escabeche, served cold (pictured).
Chinese — Any traditional Chinese menu is likely to be a wonderland of organs and other variety meats. Go no further than the standard dim sum menu to find chicken feet, often available in two or three permutations. Other dim sum dishes feature wobbly cubes of coagulated duck blood, and cow tripe laced with shredded ginger. Prominent on Sichuan menus are appetizers of cow tendon or tongue slicked with red chile oil and sprinkled with numbing peppercorns. But get down to the main course stir fries and braises on nearly any authentic Chinese bill of fare and pig intestines become one of the most common ingredients (bung stir fry shown). In Cantonese cooking, sliced liver is featured along with onions and spinach leaves in wine sauce, while kidneys hog the spotlight in deep-fried form. Crunchy pig ears are another popular item throughout China, and this is just a superficial taste of the offal wonders of Chinese cuisine.
French — Among Europeans at least, no one relishes organs more than the French, and their restaurants in the States tend not to shrink from serving them. Don’t forget, it was the French who invented foie gras (see photo, with poached pears), an extreme liver preparation that involves forcibly cramming provender down the throat of a goose. Calf brains in black butter are another Gallic standard, as are kidneys with a cream or mustard sauce. One of the world’s best treatments of tripe is found in tripes a la mode de Caen, bathed in the apple brandy called calvados and originating in Normandy. Roasted bone marrow is a big thing in French and French-American bistros.
German — Beef liver dumplings called leberklosse are a German passion, and so is liverwurst, a liver pate formed into a sausage that has been a popular sandwich filling in America for over a century (deli sandwich featuring liverwurst and bacon is shown). Milzwurst is a spleen sausage that sometimes makes it to America, though the Bavarian sour lung soup called lungeri, which has been extolled by Andrew Zimmern, would be illegal here. All sorts of head cheese appear on German menus, and the occasional blood sausage (blutwurst), sometimes laced with little bits of spleen. Presumably, all German sausages contain a proportion of variety meats, including the sausage skin, which is invariably made from sheep intestines.
Indian — While organs are not an obsession with Indians the way they are with, say, the Chinese or the French, several good dishes are to be found. Goat brain masala (shown) is one of them, delicate gray matter in a thick gravy, sometimes eaten in the south as a bar snack with garlic naan. Kidneys are popular and often included in a lamb liver-and-kidney fry flavored with coriander and chiles, with the organs providing succulent moisture in the absence of sauce. Commonly, a gluey soup is made from goat or lamb feet; and also look for chicken livers and hearts, skewered and cooked in a tandoor. Chouricos are spicy Goan pork-liver sausages. Finally, liver is often the only organ meat on Punjabi neighborhood restaurant carryout menus here.
Italian — The most bizarre Italian organ meat is pajata, the milk-containing intestines of an unweaned calf, which turns into a creamy sauce that’s served over pasta. Enjoying worldwide popularity, the most common Italian offal is liver and onions, which originated in Venice. In Sicily spleen is cherished, made into a sandwich with two types of cheese called vastedda in America (shown) and pani ca meusa back in Sicily. A sausage that’s all pig intestines is fabricated in Umbria, while in Northern Italy, bowels are featured as one of several ingredients in cotechino, a raw sausage usually boiled. Bovine tripe is commonly eaten in Rome and Florence; in the former it is cooked with mint, in the latter with tomatoes and cheese. Either of these is likely to appear on American menus and, next to liver and onions, it’s your best chance to sample Italian offal.
Mexican — Along with China, France, and the Philippines, Mexico is one of the world’s most organ-loving countries, and just about any Mexican-immigrant menu in the States features multiple forms. Tripe tacos can be made with either small intestines or stomach and the first huarache or quesadilla you should reach for in any Mexican restaurant is tongue (see photo). Eyeballs occasionally make a menu appearance as a taco filling, but more commonly ear or head, and head cheese is also a frequent filling for tortas or cemitas, which are sandwiches on elongated or round seeded rolls, respectively. The tripe soup called menudo is also universally available, downed as a hangover remedy or to preface a night of drinking.
Pakistani — On the average, Pakistanis show a greater enthusiasm for organs than Indians, as seen in kat-a-kat (shown), which has nothing to do with felines but is rather a hash of kidney, heart, brain, liver, and testicles of goats or sheep. The combination of these serves to neutralize the distinctive flavor of the individual variety meats, and the dish is surprisingly mild. Brains are common in Pakistani steam table joints in the States, usually scrambled with eggs, lending a bright yellow-gray color and slight oiliness. Finally, individual organs such as kidneys, liver, and tongue are often cubed and cooked on a flat round griddle called a tawa.
Peruvian — The number-one street food, often considered the national dish in this mountainous country, is anticuchos (pictured) — beef heart marinated, cubed, and cooked over charcoal on kebabs. The hot sauce known as ahi accompanies. Ram head soup flavored with mint can be found on Peruvian menus, but rarely in the United States. By contrast, cau-cau is a tripe soup with potatoes and turmeric often seen here. (A similar stew on Ecuadorian menus is guatita.) A soup of several cow innards called mondongo also features corn, parsley, and little bits of fried skin.
Philippines — This is another of those cuisines that features so many organs they can hardly be tallied. Many soups and stews are thickened with pork blood, and the recipe called dinuguan loads up the dark broth with intestines, ears, and cheeks, or some combination thereof — with a dash of white vinegar for sourness. Pig feet are deep fried skin-on in crispy pata, while pork belly, also with skin intact, is roasted and served with a sauce of pureed liver in lechon kawali (shown). Pig heart and intestines also make popular kebab meats.
Polish — The world of Polish charcuterie is rife with organ meats, including about half the things that look like sausages. There’s a buckwheat-laced blood sausage of thick bore with a crumbly texture that appears blue-black in the refrigerator case, and a lard-and-rice sausage that tastes something like French boudin, which can’t stand too much heat or it falls apart. Head cheese (shown) is a perpetual staple, and aside from refrigerator-case stuff, there’s a tripe soup called flaki or flaczki flavored with marjoram, and calf’s brains and calf’s feet in aspic are also popular.
Regional American — The most notorious of Regional American offal is probably bull testicles, euphemistically called Rocky Mountain oysters or prairie oysters. They’re served in cattle-raising areas of the western United States. Boudin is a French sausage adapted to Cajun usages in Louisiana and parts of Texas, either blanc (featuring lard, rice, and bits of liver) or noir (a blood sausage). Sometimes boudin is made into balls and fried (see photo). Pig nose sandwiches, called snoots, are popular in St. Louis, and so are battered and fried brain sandwiches served on hamburger buns, which are eaten throughout the Ohio River Valley. Southerners are fond of chitterlings — small intestines of pigs either battered and fried or stewed with onions. Turkey or chicken giblets (including heart, liver, and gizzard) are a frequent component of poultry stuffings, particularly on holidays. Beef tongue and stuffed derma (a mealy sausage made with large cow intestines) can be found in Jewish-American delis.
Russian — Drowning in mayonnaise, shredded tongue salad is a Russian favorite, and nearly any ground meat dish will contain heart and sometime kidneys. Uzbek-inspired shish kebabs called shashliks often count calf or pig liver among their number, and you can also sometimes find a dish of sheep’s bladder stuffed with grains and organ meats called nyanya. Most beloved of all is kholodets (or holodets, see picture), an aspic formed by boiling pig head and feet to create a colloidal broth, and then jelling it with chicken parts or other ingredients through refrigeration.