Calves liver is soft and subtle and perfect for this dish. Although pork liver and even beef liver are sometimes used as well. For today I'm using calves liver and it's being served with sauteed onions and potato. I'm out of bacon (gasp!) or I would be having lovely crisp bacon as well.
Some people soak their liver in milk, I don't. If you've got nice liver it's a waste of milk. I do however give it a rinse and a nice pat dry.
My Omi always told me to never salt liver before you cook it. So a simple dredge in flour and my liver is ready for the pan.
I used a combination of butter and olive oil, and heated my pan up fairly high. My advice is to have everything else you're serving done. The liver wont take long to cook at all, maybe a minute and a half or two on either side.
Side one.
Some blood may leech out of the liver, that's not a problem.
Side two.
That's it. Plate the liver with your sweet sauteed onions and some nice salty potatoes and you've got a awesome dinner. Mum serves her liver and onions with a drizzle of aged balsamic, cracked black pepper and sea salt. I'm doing the same.
Make sure to not overcook the liver, or it will be dry and unpleasant. The center should still have a little ooze to it. My perfect bite is a bit of potato, a nice chunk of liver and some onions on top.
Calves liver is soft, but it has a more pronounced flavour than chicken liver. I'd say this is just above an entry level offal. If you are comfortable with chicken liver give this a try. The sweet and salty tips from the other elements of this dish make it very well balanced. The liver alone may be a tad strong for those a little wary of offal.
A treat for those who like liver.
As I've mentioned many times before, I love chicken liver. Last weekend we had our lovely friends Tobi and Mandy over for dinner, and for an appetizer I decided to make a quick version of chicken liver mousse. Because of the season I had an abundance of apples in my fridge and the idea of apples sauteed with butter and nice fresh chicken liver seemed like an ideal pair.
LIV-AH!
First I sauteed a finely chopped onion and a whole peeled and grated apple.
Apple and onion.
Once they were soft I removed them from the pan and quickly fried the chicken livers until they were still pink in the center. Then I simply chopped the liver into smaller pieces and used my immersion blender to finely combine the liver and apple/onion mixture together until smooth. If you want this to be velvety take this mixture and press it through a fine mesh sieve, or not, up to you. I did not. I seasoned my version with salt and pepper and a few drops of rye whiskey (in honour of Canadian Thanksgiving).
In most mousse's people choose to fold in some cream whipped to medium peaks, I think with this recipe that would really dull both the flavor of the liver and the apple, so I left it as is. Which means this is more accurately a "very, very finely chopped liver".
Done. I resisted the urge to throw on some chopped parsley for colour.
After a few hours in the fridge I served it with some nice crusty bread and a crisp white wine. Some good accompaniments would also be a nice apple jelly and cornichon if you want to get fancy.
Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving!
I spent last weekend in Toronto visiting family. Upon arriving home I was told that dinner that night was a mixed grill, to celebrate my homecoming. Apparently Mum and Dad had eaten a lot of mixed grills when they were in the UK, and because of my love of all things offal (and my new blog) she wanted to make it for me. Having never had a mixed grill before Mum explained that it was traditionally kidney's and lamb chops and we were going to serving it with baked tomatoes and sauteed mushrooms. We were including liver because it's my favorite. I love liver, and I've been dreaming of a good plate of liver and onions for months; apparently I mentioned that once or twice. We had calves liver and kidney's as well as pork kidney's.
Pig kidney
It was Mum's job to prepare the kidney's, and my Uncle's job to prepare the liver. Mum got side tracked and my Uncle Bunny ended up preparing the liver, and the calves kidney's for the frying pan.
Liver waiting for flour, and a nice hot pan.
Mum did step in to prepare the pig kidney's
Mum removing the chewy bits.
We had some of my best, oldest friends over as well. Not all of whom like offal, so we also served a sausage from the St. Lawrence Market as well as the lamb chops. Because this was my party all I had to do was the tomatoes and mushrooms, which was fine with me.
Once the kidney's and liver were about to go into the pan everything began to move fast, so I was in the way no matter where I was standing and trying to take pictures. I have no idea what Mum and Bunny seasoned everything with, outside of flour, but these kidney's were much better than the
kidney's I made earlier this summer.
Liver on the left, kidney's on the right.
Both the liver and kidney's were cooked perfectly, and I'm not 100% of everything that went on, so I'm not sure if I could replicate it. There was beautiful crisp bacon, and sweet caramelized onions. The tomatoes were roasted with a bread crumb top and the mushrooms were cooked slowly in red wine. The lamb chops and sausage were also good, but were second tier compared to the liver and kidney's.
My plate.
We ate out in the garden, and it was dark so excuse the lighting. In front there's the liver covered in onions and a piece of crispy bacon. Behind the liver is the lamb chop, sausage and kidney's. The tomato is at the back next to some fried potatoes and the red wine mushrooms.
Lots of wine and really good friends made the absolutely giant pile of dishes all over the kitchen seem less daunting. It was great to be back in Toronto among good friends and family. And I just happen to be doubly blessed with a group of people who really know how to cook up a kidney.
Feeling a little homesick for my Omi, and therefore the perfect thing for lunch is chopped liver. The dish is basically a mash up of chicken livers, onions, bacon and hard boiled eggs made into something like a paste and then eaten on toast. It's way better than it sounds.
Growing up, Omi made lots of dishes with chicken livers, and this is one of my favorites that my Mum also makes really well. All of our recipes are a little different and yet I still think of this as my Omi's recipe. Funny how recipes can change over generations and yet can still be thought of as the 'authentic' recipe. Makes me wonder how original the Colonel's fried chicken recipe actually is.
Questions for another time.
You need 5 chicken livers, 4 slices of bacon, half an onion, and two eggs. And salt and pepper to taste.
Before you do anything else put an egg or two in a pot and cover with cold water, bring to a boil cover and turn off the heat. Let it sit there until you need your hard boiled eggs.
The two first ingredients are bacon and chicken livers. Start by washing your chicken livers to remove the excess blood, and clean them of fat and other bits that look like they don't belong. Then set aside the livers and fry the bacon.
When it starts to look like this and lots of the precious fat has rendered out take the bacon and drain on paper towels. Pour off some of the fat, or not. Whatever is to your taste. I poured off about half, but I had some fatty bacon. Chop half an onion and add it to the pan with the bacon fat and cook until soft and just a little brown. Then add the chicken livers. I like to keep the liver and onions separate so that I can remove the onions when they get to just the right spot, but still get a little of the liver juice mixed in with them.
Cook the chicken livers about 5-6 minutes over medium high heat flipping once. Unlike the
dirty rice recipe where I cooked them to just pink, I'm cooking them a little farther because they are not going to get cooked anymore.
Once cooked, take them out of the pan and when they're cool enough to handle roughly chop and then put all the livers in an appropriate sized container so that you can use an immersion blender to give them a smoother texture, you want it a little smooth and a little chunky.
If you don't have an immersion blender use a knife to chop them and then use a wooden spoon the mash them to a texture you like.
Season with salt and pepper add the bacon (which should be chopped at some point) the fried onions and then peel and chop the hard boiled eggs. I boiled two but only ended up using one.
At this point you've got your chopped up liver, fried onion, crumbled bacon and chopped egg in a bowl. Things should be looking more and more like lunch at this point. A lot of people do not fold the chopped egg in, but put it on top. I like it folded in, but up to you.
Fold together, taste and season again. I ended up adding a drop of cider vinegar to cut a little of the liveriness. If you do this make sure that you don't end up tasting the vinegar, you just want it to balance out other flavours, not be a major player in your mouth.
Once it taste's lovely put it in the fridge for a few hours so that the dish can mellow. Once you can't wait any more make some toast, and maybe a citrusy parsley salad.
This makes an awesome late afternoon snack or even lunch on a hot summer day. You can also put this chopped liver in a picnic basket with a cold bottle of riesling. Perfect for a day in the park.
I love chicken livers. And I don't mean that I love chicken livers like the guy next door loves pizza. The feelings I have about chicken livers are deep and profound, and reserved for very few other ingredients. There's something about their mild rich flavor combined with their creamy texture that simultaneously comforts and excites me.
Recently I ate dinner at Red Bones BBQ and had the smoked beef ribs, which were wonderful, but instead of beans I substituted a side of dirty rice. Now I'm sure that it was something about the name dirty that drew me to this rice, but what arrived with my ribs exceeded my hopes. Nothing really to look at, a light brown coloured rice with lumps of meat in it, but the flavor had all the calling cards of my favorite ingredient. Meaty and rich, and only subtly liver-y.
After looking at a few recipes online this is what I came up with. Probably nothing compared to what a Southern Mama makes, but still very flavorful. Pretty good for a Canadian.
After defrosting my chicken livers (yes, I have an emergency stash of liver in my freezer) I rinsed them and removed some of the ugly bits. Then I started frying the chicken livers, there are a few chicken hearts thrown in for good measure.
Once nice and brown they got flipped. The goal is to cook them until they are pink in the center.
When my livers were done they went to rest on a plate.
Then I added to the same pan half an onion and one piece of celery with its leaves. Once these were fragrant and translucent I added a half cup of brown rice and a cup of water.
I had to add more water when it started to look dry, and I seasoned with salt, cracked black pepper and some red pepper flakes. I brought this mixture up to a simmer for about five minutes, then turned it down and put a lid on it. I wandered around and did other things while this was simmering away, I think it took around 40 minutes for the rice to cook. When my rice was cooked I chopped my liver and hearts into pieces.
Then added my chopped liver to my rice mixture and folded them together.
Tasted it and re-seasoned, it was a little tight so I added a small splash of water and put it back on a low heat so that all the flavors could get to know one another. Then it was lunch time.
I spooned my rice into a bowl, brought out a bottle of tabasco and dug in. The liver flavor was there and had perfumed the dish, but adding that last splash of water and letting everything hang out for a bit before I ate had really brought everything together. The flavor of the vegetables was there, and because of chicken livers mild flavor none of the ingredients overpowered the dish, but all of them had their place. The tabasco added a really nice hint of vineager as well as some spice.
This is very different than the chopped liver of my childhood, but still very yummy. Chicken livers are incredibly versatile, they can be simply pan-fried and eaten with toast, or made into a mousse and even dirtied up in come rice. If you're looking for a good introduction into the world of offal chicken livers are some of the easiest to prepare, and in my opinion some of the most delicious.
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