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LIVER, FRIED (another way)
Take one pound of fresh liver, and a few rashers of bacon. Cut the liver into neat slices, a quarter of an inch thick, and dip each slice in a mixture made of one table-spoonful of flour, one tea-spoonful of salt, and one of pepper. Cover the bottom of the frying-pan with some clear dripping, about a quarter of an inch in depth. Place the pan on the fire, and when the dripping ceases hissing, put in the liver and bacon. The bacon will be done first; remove it, and in five minutes turn the liver. When the latter is done enough, dish it with the bacon, and serve very hot. A little sauce may be made as in the last recipe. Time, a quarter of an hour. Probable cost, 1s. 2d. Sufficient for two or three persons.
A plain fry-up that hinges entirely on timing: the quarter of an hour given is for the whole operation, not for the liver, which needs far less.
- Do not cook it fifteen minutesQuarter-inch slices of liver are done in roughly 1 to 2 minutes a side over a good heat, when the surface beads with pink juice. The book's "turn the liver in five minutes" produces the grey, granular texture that gives liver its bad reputation.
- Which liverWhich liver — The recipe says only "fresh liver." Calf's liver is the mildest and the most forgiving; lamb's is cheaper and milder than ox. Ox (beef) liver is strong and coarse and wants soaking in milk first. Pig's liver is stronger still.
- DrippingBeef dripping is the saved fat from a roast. Bacon fat, lard, or a neutral oil all work; use enough to film the pan a scant quarter inch deep.
- "When the dripping ceases hissing""When the dripping ceases hissing" — The hissing is water boiling off the rendered fat. Silence means the fat is dry and hot enough to sear rather than stew. A pinch of flour dropped in should sizzle immediately and brown in a few seconds.
- Scale back the seasoningA teaspoon each of salt and pepper to one tablespoon of flour is a very aggressive ratio, and a tablespoon of flour will not coat a pound of liver in any case. Use 3–4 tablespoons flour with about a teaspoon of salt and a half teaspoon of pepper, and shake off the excess.
- RashersA rasher is a slice of bacon — reckon 4 to 6 for a pound of liver. Start the bacon in the cold-ish pan so it renders properly, then lift it out and hold it warm while the liver cooks in the fat it leaves.
- The sauceThe sauce — "As in the last recipe" almost certainly points to a quick pan gravy of the kind these books favour: pour off most of the fat, stir a little of the seasoned flour into what remains, and loosen with stock until it coats a spoon. Scrape up the browned residue while you do it.
- YieldA pound serves two or three as the book says, with potatoes and onions alongside. Serve the moment it leaves the pan; liver stiffens as it sits.
Liver and bacon is one of the oldest fixtures of the British cheap-meat repertoire, and its logic is thrift: offal was among the least expensive animal protein a household could buy, and because liver is nearly fatless it needs the bacon and the dripping to carry it. Cassell's quotes a probable cost of 1s. 2d. for a dish sufficient for two or three persons, a figure that let a cook reckon the week's spending in advance. That the entry is headed "another way" is telling too: dictionaries of cookery of this period gave several treatments of a common dish so that a household eating liver regularly, as many did, had some variety to work with. The instruction to wait until the fat stops hissing is a pre-thermometer test for temperature, and it is still a sound one.