Ask The Expert: How to order, prep and enjoy offal
Perfectly suited to its unpretentious yet undeniably cool location at the bottom of Dominion Road in Auckland, nose-to-tail restaurant and brewery, Churly's, is always a treat to visit.
Opened in March 2020 by Hannah Miller Childs and her partner, the Churly’s ethos reflects Hannah’s background in butchery and charcuterie as well as her passion for nose-to-tail eating. I could think of no better occasion than Nose to Tail Month for an offal tasting and chat with Hannah about why it’s important to expand our tastes and eating habits.
HANNAH, YOU’RE A REAL ADVOCATE FOR NOSE TO TAIL EATING. WHY SHOULD WE BE EATING MORE OFFAL?
I think it’s really important that when you take the life of an animal you don’t waste it. You don’t just get to take the steak cuts and discard the rest.
What people don’t realise is that offal is also really healthy, particularly for women. A lot of us tend to be iron deficient and offal is super high in iron and nutrient rich. We actually talked about it with our team [at Churly’s] when our offal came in, how in the wild when the lion kills an animal, it eats the offal first because they know that’s where all the nutrients are.
SO INTERESTING HOW THEY KNOW ON AN INSTINCTUAL LEVEL THAT IT’S SO GOOD FOR YOU! HUMANS CAN BE A LITTLE MORE RESERVED THOUGH WHEN IT COMES TO OFFAL, WHAT IS THE MOST POPULAR NOSE TO TAIL CUT YOU SEE IN THE MAINSTREAM?
I would say heart or tongue. Tongue is a bit more old school - a lot of nanas will brine it and use it for pastrami. But yes, a lot of people have a love-hate with these cuts, especially if it’s been cooked badly. That’s the thing with offal – people have a tendency to cook it to death because they’re a bit scared of it. But you’ll see here, the heart is served medium, the kidney is served medium, and the liver is actually medium rare.
The thing is that here in New Zealand our standard of farming is so high that there’s no risk of there being bacteria in our offal. So we should cook it they way it’s meant to be eaten.
IS THERE A CUT OF OFFAL THAT YOU THINK SHOULD BE MORE POPULAR? WHAT ARE PEOPLE MISSING OUT ON?
I would say we should be eating more head meat in general, we have pig head on the menu this week that I’m preparing but it’s just that stigma where people hear ‘head’ or ‘offal’ and they go ‘ew’. But then nine times out of ten if I do a blind tasting everyone loves it!
HOW IS PIG HEAD PREPARED?
So we take the jowls off because that’s a prime meaty bit, a little fatty but delicious. We then cure that to make Guanciale [Italian style cured meat] which is super beautiful in a traditional carbonara, if you make carbonara you want Guanciale not bacon or pancetta, that’s not traditional. A few of my mates are charcutiers around the world and we all refer to it as ‘face bacon’, it’s fattier but it’s also much fuller in flavour .
So then once those are off, we take the whole head, pop it in a pot of water, cover that and let it simmer to clean it, depending on the head we might do that twice. Then we ditch that water, fill it up again and let it slowly cook for 8 hours. We strain it and preserve that liquid then pick off all the meat, toss it with heaps of fresh parsley, maybe a few carrots. Then we reduce the liquid way down until it’s super gelatinous and sticky, pour it over the top and either serve it as traditional pig head or ‘Fromage de tête’ a traditional terrine.
THERE’S SO MUCH YOU CAN DO, WOW! WHAT ABOUT FOR THE LESS EXPERIENCED HOME CHEF, DO YOU HAVE ANY TIPS TO GET THEM STARTED WITH OFFAL?
The thing I always stress is that you really do have to prep offal. It’s not like a sirloin steak where you can buy it and chuck it on the grill that night, things like kidneys, after we clean out the fatty bit in the centre, we soak in milk at least overnight – if you can do it for three days or so that’s even better and that mellows flavour. What we do with ours is a really traditional, English devilled kidney, which we heavily toss in oak smoked paprika from Central Otago and a whole bunch of mustard powder. Then you give it a hard sear so it’s almost crunchy on the outside and it’s so good with a mustard cream sauce. But you want to prep it with a spice mixture that balances out the kidney flavour so it’s not so overpowering.
Steak and kidney pie is also a great place to start for those newer to offal as the steak and pie flavours also balance the kidney out a lot.
We couldn’t agree more! Try our delcious Steak and Kidney Pie recipe for yourself!
Huge thanks to Hannah and the team at Churly’s for having us. If you ever get a chance to pop in, we wholly recommend ordering the Beef Heart with Chimichurri (and really just anything else on the menu, it’s all excellent)