{"id":468882,"date":"2010-03-24T23:05:25","date_gmt":"2010-03-25T03:05:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nourishedkitchen.com\/?p=3532"},"modified":"2010-03-24T23:05:25","modified_gmt":"2010-03-25T03:05:25","slug":"recipe-fried-chicken-livers-with-new-mexico-chilies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/468882","title":{"rendered":"Recipe: Fried Chicken Livers with New Mexico Chilies"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n
\n\t\"Fried<\/p>\n

Classic Comfort Food: Fried Chicken Livers with New Mexico Chillies<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

F<\/span><\/span>ried chicken livers.\u00a0 The words, when rolled off the tongue, evoke images of farm life and of down-home country food. The clean, spicy intensity of New Mexico, or Anaheim, peppers provides the perfect foil for the salty, crunchy chicken livers with their rich, mineral-like flavor.\u00a0 Growing up, my family would drive from Colorado through the extended monotony of the Kansas countryside until we reached my grandmother’s home in Oklahoma where we’d spend our summers.\u00a0 A treat during these hot, humid Oklahoma summers would be a visit to Rex’s for fried chicken seasoned with jalape\u00f1os and served alongside Indian fried bread.\u00a0 While this version varies considerably from the fastfood found at Rex’s, the essence of the dish remains the same.<\/span><\/p>\n

While liver, like many organ meats, is often avoided either out of fear of “toxins” or a general wish to avoid anything but muscle meat, it shouldn’t be.\u00a0 Liver is deeply nutritive and a strikingly rich source of vitamins and minerals making it a nutritional powerhouse of sorts. Just a single ounce of pan-fried chicken livers contains 81% of the recommended daily value for vitamin A and 99% of your body’s daily requirement for vitamin B12; moreover, its rich in riboflavin, folate and the minerals iron and selenium1<\/sup>. It is, perhaps, for this reason that traditional peoples prized thriving on unprocessed foods native to their region prior to the advent of industrialized agriculture prized liver and other offal to such a great degree.\u00a0 It is<\/em> a sacred food, powerfully nutritive and deeply nourishing.\u00a0 The key, as with all animal foods, is to ensure that the liver you feed your family comes from healthy chickens – those that have been raised on pasture with access to their natural diet which includes sprouts, grubs, kitchen scraps and a wide variety of foods.\u00a0 Healthy animals produce healthy foods.<\/p>\n

You’ll find that, in addition to liver, this recipe makes use of whole grain, sprouted flour as well as freshly rendered pasture-raised lard.\u00a0 Whole grain, though valuable, is also problematic.\u00a0 You see, it contains phytic acid – an antinutrient that binds up valuable minerals, preventing your body from fully absorbing them.\u00a0 There are three methods that effectively mitigate the effects of phytic acid: souring, soaking and sprouting.\u00a0 Since both souring and soaking take several hours and sometimes full days, using sprouted grain flour eliminates the issues posed by regular whole grain flour.<\/p>\n

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Just a single ounce of pan-fried chicken livers contains 81% of the recommended daily value for vitamin A and 99% of your body’s daily requirement for vitamin B12; moreover, its rich in riboflavin, folate and the minerals iron and selenium<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

We also make use of freshly rendered lard from pasture-raised hogs – a fat that, despite its bad reputation, offers greater benefit than you might initially think.\u00a0 Indeed, the most prominent fatty acid in lard is monounsaturated fat – the very same nutritive, healthy fat found in olive oil and avocado.\u00a0 Indeed, monounsaturated fat comprises about 45% of the fat found in lard1<\/sup>.\u00a0 Some evidence indicates that the consumption of monounsaturated fats may have the ability to lower LDL (bad) cholesterol while simultaneously raising HDL (good) cholesterol2<\/sup>. Furthermore, pasture-raised lard is one of the richest food sources of natural vitamin D – a nutrient that of which most US children3<\/sup> and a great number of adults4<\/sup> show an insufficiency or even deficiency.<\/p>\n

So while this dish may contain both liver and lard, know that with each savory and spiced bite you take, you’ll consume a powerfully rich combination of wholesome nutrients that play an important role in health: B vitamins, vitamin D and myriad minerals.<\/p>\n

Fried Chicken Livers with New Mexico Chilies<\/h2>\n

Savory and pleasantly spiced by bright green chili peppers, these fried chicken livers are best served alongside a gravy made from mineral-rich chicken stock.\u00a0 My son, just four, can eat an entire plate by himself. I served these once, as snack, and he begged his friends to try them – telling them, “You have to eat the whole<\/em> chicken: livers, feet and all.”\u00a0 It is good for you, so enjoy.<\/p>\n

Fried Chicken Livers: Ingredients<\/h3>\n