A tender mix of ground pork, onions, garlic, swiss chard, and liver - yes, liver - makes these French 'meatballs' a tasty and nutritious main dish that will get by the liver filter of even your pickiest family members. Read on for why liver is one of the most nutrient dense foods. If you think it's too liver-y tasting, try these and see if they change your mind!
Caillettes are a type of meatball or sausage traditionally made from ground pork, offal (organ meat), and greens and wrapped in caul fat (from the lining of a pig's intestine). I found the recipe in a cookbook by David Lebowitz called My Paris Kitchen, and I was intrigued. Mr. Lebowitz is an American chef who trained at Chez Panisse in Berkeley before moving to Paris, so I don't know how authentic they are. But I'm trying to incorporate more 'nose-to-tail' eating into my diet and these fit the bill. Eating the whole animal is not only more more nutritionally diverse, but more environmentally responsible.
Nutrition of Liver
For some background, there was a study published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition in 2022 which looked at the nutrients that are most often deficient in diets worldwide (iron, zinc, folate, vitamin A, calcium and vitamin b12), and then defined nutrient density by the number of calories of different foods it would take to get adequate amounts of each of these nutrients. Liver was top of the list as being the most nutrient dense. In fact, organ meats took four of the top ten spots. [If you're interested in reading the study, you can find it here.]
You might know that liver is a great source of iron because it's the iron that gives liver its distinctive taste. In fact, liver is one of the best sources of easy-to-absorb heme iron (for more about why iron is such an important nutrient and why most of us don't get enough of it check out this blog post).
You might not know that liver is also a great source of riboflavin, folate, vitamin B12, vitamin A, copper and choline - a nutrient in the B-vitamin family that is essential for brain health.
If you think about what a liver does, it makes sense that it contains so many nutrients. In humans and in the animals we eat, liver is one of the most metabolically active organs. Besides being critical for digestion, the liver is the place where any unwanted substances - toxins like alcohol and medications, but also natural things like hormones - are sent to be prepared for removal by the body. The liver neutralizes these toxic substances through a series of complex chemical reactions and packages them in a form that can be easily excreted. In order to perform those complex chemical reactions, the liver needs nutrients. Lots and lots of nutrients. Liver is a veritable storehouse of nutrients, including iron, but also fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K), copper and zinc. When we eat liver, we get all of those good things.
But what about the cholesterol?! It's true, liver contains significant amounts of dietary cholesterol because it stores that too, but that's not a problem for most people. Read all about why cholesterol in your food doesn't translate to cholesterol in your blood in this blog post, (and make some deviled eggs for your next football party while you're at it!).
An Introduction to Eating Liver
The thing I love about this recipe is that you can't taste the chicken liver, or if you do, you might just wonder why it tastes so good without being able to pin down the source. Maybe it's the bacon? Doesn't everything taste better with bacon? The other thing I love about this recipe is that it also includes greens! Dark leafy greens are number four on the list of most-nutrient dense foods. Liver and greens together in a dish that tastes like neither is too good to be true.
I have served this recipe to my two teenaged sons and my husband, and none of them was the wiser about what they were eating.
I only made a few changes to Leibovitz's recipe, including cutting back on the amount of Swiss chard because I found that it can give the patties an unappetizing olive-green color. I also cut back on the bacon - one strip of American-style bacon is plenty for wrapping each caillette. Lebowitz calls these sausages, but they are different from what you probably think of a sausage. Without a casing the meat is kind of crumbly and falls apart when you cut it. That's why I decided to stick to the original name, caillettes.
Recipe Tips
Chard is one of the most beautiful fall vegetables. It comes in a green version, with creamy yellow ribs, a ruby version, with bright red ribs, and rainbow, which is a beautiful mix of all different colors. They all taste the same.
After the Swiss chard has been cooked, drain it and let it cool. Form it into a softball-sized ball and squeeze, squeeze, and squeeze some more with your hands to get all the water out. This helps prevent the caillettes from 'weeping' when you bake them.
Using a food processor to chop and mix everything together makes a finely textured caillette. This time I didn't have a food processor available, so I chopped it all by hand. A lot more work, but the rougher texture was nice.
These can be baked in the oven but are much faster and crispier in an air fryer, so time to get that out if you have one.
These freeze great. I doubled Leibowitz's recipe so I could have some leftover for future meals.
Pork and Swiss Chard Caillettes
Adapted from My Paris Kitchen, by David Lebovitz
Serves 4-8, 1-2 caillettes per serving.
Ingredients
8 ounces raw chicken livers, drained
2 teaspoons salt
Freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, minced
1 pound ground pork
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves, minced, or 1 teaspoon dried
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
12 ounces Swiss chard, tough ends removed, rinsed well
1/4 cup chopped parsley
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
8 strips bacon (not thick-cut, preferable uncured)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. If you prefer to use an air fryer, see step 12 instructions.
Season the chicken livers with 1 teaspoon salt and some freshly ground black pepper.
Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large cast-iron skillet. Saute the diced onions until soft and starting to turn golden, about 5 minutes.
Add the livers and cook, stirring frequently, until they are cooked through, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and scrape into a bowl.
Heat an additional 1 tablespoon olive oil in the same pan. When it's hot, add the garlic and thyme and cook briefly. Add the ground pork and saute until cooked through and most of the water that has been released has evaporated.
Stir the allspice and an additional 1 teaspoon salt into the pork mixture. Remove from heat and add to the liver and onion mixture.
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and add the chard. Simmer for 5-10 minutes until the stems are tender. Drain thoroughly and squeeze out the excess water with your hands.
Add the Swiss chard to a large food processor and pulse until the chard is coarsely chopped. Add the liver and pork mixture, egg, lemon juice, and parsley. Pulse briefly until the mixture is blended and holds together but is still chunky. Do not over mix.
Optional - take a spoonful of this mixture and saute it in a little olive oil to taste and correct the seasonings.
Cut 8 slices of bacon in half slightly off-center, so that one piece is a little longer than the other
Oil a baking sheet or line with a silicone mat. Form 1/2 cup of the meat mixture into oval-shaped mounds. (Your hands are the best too for this!) Take one shorter piece bacon and drape it over the mound diagonally. Take the longer piece and drape it across the other way, forming an 'X'. Tuck the ends of the top piece underneath the meat mixture.
Bake for 25 minutes. If the bacon isn't crisp, run them under the broiler for a few minutes. Alternatively, cook in an air fryer for 13-15 minutes at 375 degrees.
