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Liver, Fat Ragout Of
Take the livers of two large fat geese. Remove the gall-bag, taking care that no yellow spots are left near the place where it was, then lay the livers in milk for some hours to whiten them. Put them into a stewpan, and cover them with equal parts of good gravy stock and light wine. Put with them a bunch of parsley, two sliced shallots, a tea-spoonful of bruised pepper and ginger mixed, four bruised cloves, a bay-leaf, and a little salt. It is probable that very little of the last-named ingredient will be required, as the gravy and stock will doubtless contain salt sufficient. Cover the saucepan closely, and simmer gently. When the livers are done enough, drain them from the liquid, and reduce the latter by rapid boiling to the consistency of sauce. This ragout may either be used as a garnish, or it may be served as a separate dish. When the latter is the case, the livers should be placed upon a dish, and the yolks of two eggs beaten up with a quarter of a pint of cream should be added to the reduced liquid, and poured over them. Time to simmer the livers, a quarter of an hour. Probable cost uncertain, livers being generally bought with the geese. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A Victorian treatment of fattened goose liver — essentially a braise of whole foie gras finished with an egg-and-cream liaison. Two details decide whether it works: the bile and the final sauce.
- The liaison must not boilOnce the two yolks beaten with cream go into the reduced liquid, keep it below a simmer and stir constantly until it thickens to coating consistency. A boil scrambles the yolks and the sauce breaks; the original says nothing about this because it assumed you knew.
- The gall bagThe warning about "yellow spots" is the real instruction. Any bile smeared on the liver during removal makes the whole dish bitter, and no amount of milk soaking fixes it. Modern livers are usually sold with the gall already removed, but check the underside and trim any greenish or yellow staining away generously.
- Sourcing the liverTwo large fat goose livers means fattened liver — foie gras — roughly 1 1/2 to 2 lb each. Sale is restricted in some jurisdictions. Whole duck foie gras (about 1 lb) works on the same principles; ordinary goose or duck liver from a butcher will make a good ragout but behaves differently, being lean and firmer.
- TimingA quarter of an hour suits whole fattened liver at a bare simmer, and no longer — fat liver past that point renders out its fat and turns grainy and greasy. Ordinary lean poultry livers need only a few minutes and are done when just pink at the centre.
- Measures and vesselsA quarter of a pint in an English book of this date is 5 fl oz, so a little over half a cup of cream. A stewpan is a straight-sided saucepan with a lid; anything wide enough to hold the livers in one layer will do.
- "Light wine"A dry white — Riesling or a plain Chardonnay — in equal volume with the stock, enough to just cover. Sauternes or another sweet white is the more usual modern partner for fat liver if you want the period sweetness.
- The milk soakSeveral hours in milk draws out residual blood and pales the liver. It is cosmetic rather than culinary; refrigerate while it soaks, and drain and pat dry before cooking.
- YieldFour or five as a course, as stated, and that is generous — fattened liver is very rich, and small portions with the sauce spooned over serve better than large ones.
The frank note that the cost is "uncertain, livers being generally bought with the geese" is the point: in a period when geese were bought whole and often from a known supplier, a large fatty liver was a windfall rather than a purchase. Deliberate fattening of geese for their livers is very old — Roman writers describe feeding figs to the birds, and the Latin ficatum, fig-fed liver, is generally traced as the ancestor of the French foie and the Italian fegato — while the Strasbourg and Périgord trades that made foie gras a luxury product were well established by the nineteenth century. What is striking here is the treatment: rather than the terrine or pâté an English cook of the period would have associated with imported Strasbourg pies, the liver is braised whole in wine and stock and served under an egg-yolk sauce, closer to the older French ragoût tradition in which almost anything could be stewed and its liquor reduced to a coating.