Our Paleo Liver Dumplings and Nutritional Concerns.
Leberknödel is a traditional dish of German, Austrian and Czech cuisines. It is also a recipe Sally Fallon used in Nourishing Traditions, this is of course the Paleo Liver Dumpling version by Vivica!
This past Monday I taught a cooking class for the Weston A. Price Foundation chapter here in Chico. This was the third class I did for them, and the second one about liver. It is quite funny because people start recognizing me in town, as the organ meat specialist. I get stopped at the farmers market and asked for advice o how to cook heart and gizzards…Don’t get me wrong, I am quite happy and proud of this reputation!
As a Certified Technician in Whole Food Nutrition, I should stay true to my title, and teach how to nourish with whole foods, not just supplements, and what food is more nourishing than organ meats? Sadly in our contemporary American culture the taste for organ meat has been long forgotten. Most people consider it nothing short of disgusting to eat liver or heart.
I stick to the ancient Chinese proverb: “You have to eat what you want to heal”. Even though you would have to eat really large quantities of liver, to fully heal your liver, and there are quicker ways, the nutrition provided by the organ meat of healthy, happy, pastured animals is invaluable.
So why not make it also taste good?
That’s right! That is my motto: “healthy food should taste delicious!” As you see my recipes are very varied, both in ingredients as in origin. They do have one main thing in common: They taste good. I am pretty proud to say I can make almost anything palatable!
With the Paleo Liver Dumplings it was not a hard job. Imagine a rich fragrant bone broth, a light sprinkling of fresh aromatic parsley and lemon zest…and a juicy, tender dumpling bobbing just below the surface. it is the perfect dish for the coming winter months. To deeply nourish your body and strengthen the immune system, and to warm the soul and your frozen fingertips!
- Serves: 6 servings
- Serving size: 1 serving
- Calories: 195
- Fat: 16Gr
- Carbohydrates: Whole 2 Gr
- Protein: 9gr
- ¼ pound grass fed ground beef
- ¼ pound grass fed beef liver
- 1 pastured egg
- 3 TBS melted organic or grass fed butter
- rind of 1 organic lemon, grated
- 2 tablespoons fresh chopped organic parsley
- 1 organic shallot or small yellow organic onion, finely chopped
- 2 cloves organic garlic
- sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 1 quart home made beef stock
- Peel and clean liver from veins and cut in small cubes.
- Place cubes in a food processor together with the ground beef.
- Grind together until uniform and smooth.
- Now place the egg, onion, parsley, lemon rind and melted butter in the food processor as well. Pulse together until well blended.
- If the mixture is too big for your processor, divide in small batches and then combine by hand in a large bowl, mixing well with a spatula.
- In the meantime bring stock to a boil.
- From the beef mixture form many little meatballs, the size that would fit well in you cupped hand.
- Carefully lower meatballs into boiling stock with a spoon and let simmer on a low heat for 10/15 minutes, or until desired doneness is achieved.
- Serve in bowls together with the cooking broth.
- Sprinkle lightly with fresh chopped parsley before serving.
This recipe is also part of Delicious Obsessions fabulous BLOG CARNIVAL!!
YUM! This looks delish! Thanks for sharing this week! 🙂
How does this dish hold up for leftovers? Could I make the dumplings ahead of time, freeze, and thaw as needed?
Yes Kacie it is perfect for that!! You can freeze the “meat balls” (Knoedels) and then jut defrost and throw in the broth. You can actually freeze the broth too! 🙂
Would you freeze them raw or pre-cooked? Thank you!
Raw for sure!
I just used some from the freezer (I did a huge batch last week) and they are just as good! Thank you.
awesome!!
Made this recipe for dinner last night and it turned out super delicious. The lemon zest in the dumplings made the dish refreshing and canceled out all funkiness of liver flavor. This recipe takes minutes to put together as well. Thanks so much! -Kelly(:
Thank you for sharing your feedback Kelly! I am really happy it came out good.
Thank you so much for the nice review Kelly. I am so glad you liked the recipe.