How To Prepare Gizzards For Cooking
In this quick tutorial I show you how to prepare chicken gizzards for use in soups, stocks, stews or any other dish you might want to make with them.
Why you should eat gizzards
Gizzards are really worth including in your heritage cooking. Like all organ meats they are packed with nutrients, in most parts of the world they are one of the cheapest parts of chicken to buy, and they are very mild tasting too. Some other organ meats, such as liver or kidneys, have a taste that most people need to get used to before they can enjoy them. Gizzards, however, are different. Cooked gizzards are a bit more chewy than chicken thigh meat but their taste is nice and mild. If you are thinking to start including organ meats in your diet, gizzards are a perfect starting point. It is especially true if you have children. When I was a kid, gizzards were the only organ meat that I and my siblings ate with no fuss (my grandma always cooked them in chicken soup).
In this tutorial, I show you how to prepare chicken gizzards, but the same method applies to duck or turkey or any other type of gizzards. I also assume here that you are starting with home butchered birds. If you got your gizzards at the butcher, they are probably already clean and ready for cooking. At least in most countries, though not where I live – mine were bought and still needed to be cleaned. If your gizzards are already clean and look like the picture above, feel free to skip down to the last part of the tutorial where I tell you how to cook them.
Also, make sure you have a nice sharp knife – it will make you job easier and quicker.
How to prepare gizzards
We start with a gizzard that still has a piece of the intestine and a piece of the oesophagus attached. Cut those off with a sharp knife.
Most gizzards also have quite a bit of fat on them. I usually remove any big pieces of fat pulling it off with my fingers. Too much far will make your dish greasy. Don’t throw it away, though! Collect the fat scraps until you have enough of them to make schmaltz.
Now that you have removed the extra fat and other unwanted bits (left), the gizzard is ready to be cut open. With your sharp knife, make a slit along the gizzard. Not too deep – or you will cut through the internal membrane and any food inside the gizzard will spill and make a mess. This requires practice so don’t worry if it happens. Just clean up, the gizzard will still be perfectly usable.
The point of making a shallow, neat cut lengthwise is so that now you can pull both sides of the cut apart to reveal the inside membrane, the little package that may have the grain or grit or whatever the chicken recently ate in it. I’m sure there is technical vocabulary for all that. Here I try to explain everything simply and with no jargon.
With one hand hold the gizzard, with the other hand gently and slowly pull off this little grain package. You do want to be gentle so you don’t rip it and spill the grain everywhere. Throw the inside membrane away.
Now your gizzard is clean and flat, ready for cooking. If you look close, you will see that tiny pieces of the membrane are still there (same with the picture below). It doesn’t matter, the small pieces are not a problem as long as most of the membrane is removed. No need to spend time picking them off.
Cooking your prepared gizzards
Now that I have shown you how to prepare gizzards, it is time to cook them.
You need to keep in mind that gizzards need to be covered in liquid to cook properly. Also, they take around 2 hours to cook to tenderness – chicken gizzards that is. Larger gizzards, for example from turkey or duck, will likely need longer than that. You can either add them raw to stews and soups or cook them separately and add already cooked to your dishes in the last few minutes of cooking.
If I want to make a stew, I will cook the gizzards, spices and stock/sauce for about 60-90 minutes first before adding any vegetables. Most veggies would become overcooked if added at the start of cooking with the gizzards. The exception to that are onions and garlic. I usually saute chopped onions and garlic in butter first. Then add the raw gizzards, spices and any liquid to be cooked together for the first hour or so. Then add any other veggies and cook for another 1 hour.
For use in soups, I first cook gizzards in water, covered, for 2 hours. Then I add them to the finished soup. I often cook a large batch of them and freeze some for future use. They are a great addition to broths, chicken noodle soup, vegetable soup, barley soup…That’s how we usually eat them.
Extra tips
When freezing gizzards spread them on baking sheets first for flash freezing before packing them into freezer bags – they won’t clump together this way.
Keep in mind that cooking gizzards from raw makes your whole kitchen smell like gizzards, so prop your window open. They may have a distinctive smell when they cook but they do NOT taste like that at all, promise!
How To Prepare Gizzards For Cooking
Equipment
- sharp knife
Materials
- 1 kg chicken gizzards, or other gizzards
Instructions
- Remove any pieces of intestine or oesophagus, cutting them off with a sharp knife.
- Using your fingers, pull off any larger pieces of fat. The fat can be collected in a bag in the freezer until you have enough to render it into schmaltz.
- With your sharp knife, make a shallow lengthwise cut in the gizzard. Don't cut too deep or you will cut through the inside membrane which may contain any undigested food the chicken had eaten.
- With each hand, hold each side of the cut gizzard and pull slowly and gently open.
- Now with one hand, pull off the inside sac and discard it. If the sac has ripped in the process, don't worry. Peel off any remaining bits of the membrane from the gizzard and clean up the spilled grain. You gizzard is still fine for cooking.
- Repeat the above steps with each gizzard. Then give them a quick wash under running water. They are now ready for use in recipes.
Notes
- Gizzards should be cooked covered in liquid for about 2 hours until tender. You can’t really pan fry them – they would be as tough as leather.
- They can be added to dishes raw at the start of cooking, or already cooked.
- To batch cook your gizzards, place them in a saucepan, cover with water and bring to boil. Reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 2 hours. They will have a distinctive smell as they cook (it is really the fat bits on them that smell like that). Don’t let it discourage you – they do not taste like that at all.
- You can add them raw to broths, stews and soups, or cooked and sliced to salads or stir fries.
- If you would like to use the fat scraps you have removed to render chicken fat, check the recipe for schmaltz on my blog.
