Innards? (Chicken / Rabbit) What to do?

[Tela T.]

There was a post about rabbit earlier - which prompted me to ask this question - what does anyone do with innards - both from rabbit and chickens - how do you tell the gizzard from the liver of a chicken - can you just keep throwing them in the freezer until you have enough to do something with? How long do they keep? Then what - will rabbit be good as sweetbreads - maybe braised? I did come across a chicken liver spread receipe. But what are any other options?

[Karl S.]

Rabbit only has one innard that is usually supplied (if you are lucky), the liver.

Chicken usually has three, plus the neck, to wit:

From top left to right, clockwise: the neck, the liver, the heart and the gizzard.

Link: http://www.chicken.org.au/giblets.jpg

[JudiAU]

Rabbit liver is good with a little salt sprinkled on it and quickly sauteed or threaded on a herb branch and grilled.

[Karl S.]

Now, as to what to do with them. Don't throw them away.

Rabbit liver is large, compared to a chicken liver, and fairly pale. It is very delicately flavored, and is best appreciated on its own: I either saute it quickly over high heat or gently braise or fry it over low heat. Either way is perfectly yummy. Rabbit liver is also sometimes used to thicken certain rich meaty sauces (such as for pasta), but that's too involved and obscure to deal with here.

Now, chicken giblets have a variety of uses. The liver can, of course, can be eaten on its own if you buy a bunch; search for whole threads devoted to that topic on this board.

The neck, gizzard and heart can be saved to use to make stock/broth, either roasting beforehand or not (wing tips and pinions, along with backs, keel bones, feet and heads, also help for making a richer stock/broth). You can also mince the cooked meat from each and use in stuffings and gravies. The neck meat has to be plucked rather carefully, and my forebears would disdain anyone who didn't manage to extract all the luscious morsels from it. The gizzard meat has to be trimmed from the gristly membrane that joins it together, but you needn't be too fuzzy about removing all of the membrane.

The heart can be used as is. If you are lucky, your market may offer packages of hearts (harder to find now than was the case a generation ago, due to changes in industrial chicken production; Asian markets appear to be the last reliable place to get them this way).

A really delicious thing is to cook up a mess of chicken hearts and eat 'em like very rich popcorn...

[Pat Hammond]

When I see packages containing gizzards, often with hearts thrown in, I snap them up for a pot of giblets and rice. Wash the giblets well. Trim the gizzards if you feel like it. Cook them as if you were making broth. Use lots of chopped onion, celery, carrot, a sage leaf, and parsley. You can fortify this with a can of chicken broth, for more flavor. When the gizzards are fork tender (it can take a while), add rice and lots of ground pepper and salt. The finished product should be soupy, but not as soupy as soup.

[Nina W.]

Just want to clarify something for you. You said "will rabbit be good as sweetbreads?" Sweetbreads are glands found in much larger mammals - cows, calves, sheep, lamb...they don't exist as meat in rabbits or poultry.

[Tom Meg]

As someone who's grown squeamish about eating non-organic chicken, I'd be extra squeamish about eating livers from commercially raised birds. Isn't the liver one of those organs that removes (and is a repository for) toxins? I could very well be wrong, but I imagine that commercially raised chicken livers contain some nasty stuff.

Also, non-muscle organs like liver go badly much faster than the rest of the animal. I've pulled some pretty tired-looking livers out of chickens that were otherwise well before their expiration date.

Link: http://meglioranza.com

[Karl S.]

Freshness and method of storage are more important than organicness, as it were. It is better if you can find a market that slaughters its own or gets fresh slaughtered poultry, and ideally puts the carcasses on ice rather than letting it all stew in cryovac. Even so, proper handling and cooking do eliminate problems almost all the time.

But the organs as toxic-waste-dump meme that floats in the heads of many Americans should also be confronted: it's really derivative of an excessively antiseptic mentality that's a bit out of balance. Too much good food gets wasted because of it.

[muD]

If you are dressing chickens yourself, you need to slice open the gizzard and clean it out. If you are just buying whole chickens that come with the liver, gizzard, heart and neck, then saute them in some butter and snack on them before dinner.

As for saving chicken innards, your local grocery store probably carries chicken livers and gizzards (with a few hearts scattered in). They are very inexpensive so saving yours may not make a lot of sense.