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Calf's Liver, Stewed
Take two or three pounds of liver, soak it in cold water for about twenty minutes, then put it into a stewpan with a little melted butter, and let it brown lightly; pour off the fat, and cover it with some nicely-flavoured stock, and let it stew very gently for a couple of hours or more. Thicken the gravy, and put a couple of glasses of port into it, and the juice of a lemon, or, if preferred, white wine. It is an improvement to lard the liver before putting it into the stewpan, or finely-minced herbs may be strewn over it after browning. Time, two hours and a half. Probable cost, 10d. per pound. Sufficient for four or five persons. (See also LIVER, FRIED.)
A Victorian braise of a whole piece of liver rather than the quick-seared slices most cooks know today. The method works, but the timing is the part to treat with scepticism.
- The two-and-a-half hoursLiver has almost no connective tissue to break down, so extended stewing does not tenderise it — it drives out moisture and leaves the texture grainy and dry. If you want the braised style, keep the liquid at a bare shiver, well below a simmer, and start checking at 45 minutes; a 2–3 lb whole lobe is usually done long before two hours.
- Preparing the liverPeel off the thin outer membrane and cut out the larger tubes before cooking, or the piece will contract and the gravy will be full of gristle. The 20-minute cold-water soak was meant to draw residual blood from a freshly butchered liver; with supermarket calf's liver it is optional, and a soak in milk does more for the flavour.
- LardingThreading strips of pork back fat through the meat with a larding needle. Few home kitchens have the needle now. Draping the liver with thin bacon or barding fat during the browning and braising gives much the same protection against drying.
- "A couple of glasses of port"A Victorian wineglass is roughly 2 fl oz, so about half a cup in total. Add it once the gravy is thickened and let it cook a few minutes to lose the raw spirit edge.
- Thickening the gravyNo method is given. Strain the braising liquid, reduce it, and whisk in beurre manié — equal weights of soft butter and flour — or finish with a spoonful of arrowroot slaked in cold stock. The lemon juice goes in off the heat at the very end.
- Stock"Nicely-flavoured" means a proper brown veal or beef stock, not water with a cube. The dish has very few other seasonings, so the stock carries it.
- Cost and yield10d. a pound is Victorian retail pricing and does not convert usefully to modern money. The stated yield of four or five people still holds for 2–3 lb, served with the reduced gravy and something starchy.
Cassell's treats liver by the animal it came from, and calf's liver was generally reckoned milder and finer-grained than ox liver, which was the cheaper household version. Offal features widely in nineteenth-century English cookery books, and this dictionary offers both a fried and a stewed treatment for the same organ. The larding, the port and the lemon read as a dish dressed upward for a middle-class table. The instruction to soak in cold water reflects a period when residual blood in a freshly butchered liver was a real consideration rather than a formality.