Beef, bison, lamb spleen

(M) #1

Has anybody noticed the nutritional value of the spleen? Just 1 oz has around 11g of iron and apparently if you eat 100g it’s the equivalent of a small orange for vitamin C.

(Geoffrey) #2

Haven’t heard of eating the spleen before. Didn’t know it was a thing. I am intrigued though.

#3

I didn;'t know of its nutritional value but considering how much spleen we eat, it can’t be very important for most of us…

But I do know that some organs have some serious nutrition content. I can’t eat as much liver as I wish as it’s way too nutritious and one can actually overeat vitamin A as it’s fat soluble and piles up… But it’s just some normal liver. I think many of us have read about the super crazy polar bear liver…

I know brain has some insane cholesterol content…

Did nothing about spleen. I only SAW it once in a hypermarket and didn’t buy it even then. But I plan to, one day.

I don’t really care about vitamin C, it’s easy to get on my diet and my needs are tiny on my diet… And I obviously would fry the hell out of the spleen, I do that to most meat, after all…

(M) #4

Well the spleen doesn’t have much vitamin A so you wouldn’t need to worry about that. It’s just super high in iron and has quite a bit of vitamin C. The liver has the b12 though. I would do a combination of both.

(Mike W.) #5

Are you anemic? You can get a lot of iron just by cooking in cast iron.

(M) #6

I cook in cast iron. I am anemic, not sure of the exact cause. I’m going to give the bison spleen a try. Its just another bloody organ meat I’m sure.

(Michael) #7

I eat sheep spleen at least once a week for both iron and vit C. Had some last night with bison heart and liver I eat then baked as is, but stuff then with fat if you cannot handle the iron flavour.

#8

I love the taste of fried blood, I suppose I would like spleen too. I really need to get some already…

(M) #9

I tried bison spleen last night. Just a little chunk of it. It was different than the liver. I couldn’t really get it to cook in the inside. It browned on the inside but stayed really red and bloody on the inside. Is it supposed to be like that? I kept putting it back in the pan but it just wouldn’t cook… I eat the liver slightly pink but it’s like only the outer membrane of the spleen would cook and the inside would stay raw

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #10

I did an Internet search on “cooking spleen” and found quite a few sites with recipes. If you have Internet access, you might want to check some of them out.

(Michael) #11

Spleen takes longer to cook than most meats. It contains a TON of blood for sure. Many recipes call for boiling spleen. While I bake and eat whole sheep spleens as is - the outer skin is much thinner on sheep compared to the much larger bison spleen (should be about the length of your arm if you got a whole spleen) has a pretty thick skin. I normally cut off the outer casing of the larger bison spleen after boiling it for a while (too hard to separate if not cooked and the inside does take a while to cook, so boil for a while). Once the spongey/chewy outer layer is gone, the cooked spleen is very absorbent. I refried the spleen in fats to add flavour.
I have not been able to obtain beef or bison spleen’s for a long time now. After so many sheep spleens, I would be curious to see how the larger spleen would taste just baked, but stuffed with pork belly/cheese and baked for something like 45 minutes at 350 F.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #12

I just cooked a beef tongue from the nearby farm store. It was easy; just simmer for three hours, strip off the skin, then serve either warm or else cold and pickled. You can also corn it; most deli tongue is corned.

This home-cooked tongue was not quite the same taste as the deli tongue. For one thing, it was softer, which makes me wonder if I simmered it too long. I think I’ll try corning the next one, to see if it comes out more than the tongue I remember from that wonderful deli in Manhattan.

#13

Did you ever try pork spleen? I only saw spleen once and that was pork (what else? :smiley: we mostly have pork and chicken here).

I will try to remember what you wrote when I finally can try spleen… Stuffed with pork belly? Sounds good :slight_smile:

#14

Only if you don’t like it tender :slight_smile: I mostly have pork tongue but once I did beef. I doubt I cooked it longer than the pork (1 hour, maybe a bit more but I cut the beef one, it wouldn’t fit my pot otherwise). It was soft enough.

Deli tongue here is pork and in aspic. I prefer my cooked fresh one, in the traditional way, covered with paprika and maybe garlic slices. I virtually never use garlic but cooked tongue calls for it. The spiced cooking water has garlic too.

(Michael) #15

No pork spleen yet. Will buy one if I see it. Was lucky today though, got sheep liver heart and lungs all for just a 20 dollar bill.