Faggot

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I've never made this before, but I think it's what I'll have for Thanksgiving this year.

(Stolen from Michael Procopio, but I don't think he'll mind too much. (please click the link))

Ingredients:
1 lamb heart, cut up into thick chunks
 ½ lamb liver, sliced into large pieces
 ½ of a yellow onion, sliced into quarters
2 cloves of garlic
5 to 6 sprigs of thyme
Equal parts water and red wine (about a cup each) or enough to just cover the entrails for braising
 ½ cup freshly ground beef or lamb fat
 ½ to  ¾ cup of fresh bread crumbs
1 egg
Salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons each of olive oil and butter for frying

Preparation:

1. In a meat grinder, grind your fat into a fine grind. If you do not have a grinder, ask your local butcher to do it for you. When I asked the man behind the counter if he had any fat I could buy, he told me he didn’t sell that sort of thing, but that he’d just thrown a pile of beef fat in the garbage. Since this dish is essentially about making something out of what most people consider unworthy of eating, I asked him for some. He looked confused. He didn’t think it was even worth charging for. Wash thoroughly. Set aside, covered.

2. Preheat oven to 350F. In a large sauté pan, place onion, garlic, heart, and liver pieces in a single layer. Pour over water and wine mixture over until everything is just barely covered. Add thyme sprigs to the top, then place pan in the oven, where it will stay until the onion and garlic have softened and the heart and liver have been thoroughly cooked through. About 45 minutes. Remove the organs and other solid matter from the liquid to let cool. Reserve liquid. Keep oven on.

3. Place the organs, onion and garlic into the bowl of a food processor and pulse until the everything has been broken down into small pieces then transfer to a large, clean bowl. Add fat, egg, and bread crumbs. Mix thoroughly using your hands. Add salt and pepper to taste, then mix again. Form the ground-up gut mixture into balls and set out onto a plate.

4. In another sauté pan, heat olive oil and butter until just sizzling. Add the faggots to the pan and brown them, top and bottom. Add the braising liquid to the pan, then place the pan into the oven and cook for 15 minutes. Remove them from the pan and serve with pride hot with the pan gravy over mashed potatoes. Fearlessly.

Of course...

...in the UK (where the food originates), you can just buy commercial versions, frozen from almost any supermarket, sold under the brand name Mr Brain's. I kid you not.
But at least if you make the product yourself you know exactly what's gone into it, with no added rusk or food additives.

An alternative way of getting hold of meat fat, if you have one of those health grill devices (an electric double-sided hinged grill - ones endorsed by a certain boxer are the most common but other brands are available) then cook a few meals on one of those and save the fat that runs off into the trough somewhere.

--B


As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!