Home › The Principles of Cookery › Liver Klosse
Liver Klosse
Take a large slice of the crumb of a stale loaf. Pour half a pint of milk over it, and let it soak for half an hour. Press the liquid from it, and mix with it half a pound of finely-minced raw liver, the grated rind of half a small lemon, two table-spoonfuls of chopped parsley, one of chives, and a little pepper and salt. Dredge a table-spoonful of flour over these ingredients, and stir in two well-beaten eggs. Make the mixture up into egg-shaped klosse, drop them into boiling water or broth, and boil them until done enough. Before serving, fry two ounces of chopped bacon in a little butter, and pour this over the klosse. If any pieces of liver remain, they may be sliced, dipped into beaten egg and bread-crumbs, and fried in hot fat. Time to boil, about half an hour. Probable cost, 10d. Sufficient for four persons.
A German-style liver dumpling, given here in the compact Victorian style that assumes the cook already knows what a dumpling should feel like. The mixture is soft, so the first thing to do is test one.
- Test one before shaping the restDrop a single small klosse into the simmering liquid; if it breaks up, work another spoonful of flour or dry breadcrumb into the mixture. Liver and eggs vary in wetness and the recipe gives no way to judge it otherwise.
- Half a pintCassell's is British, so half a pint is 10 fl oz, about 1¼ US cups. The bread should drink most of it; you squeeze out what it will not hold.
- The bread"Crumb of a stale loaf" means the soft interior of a dense white loaf, crust discarded — roughly 3 to 4 oz. Modern soft sandwich bread turns to paste; use a firm country or sourdough loaf a day or two old.
- Which liverCalf's or lamb's liver gives the mildest result; ox (beef) liver was the cheapest and is considerably stronger, though the recipe does not specify which. Trim membrane and any tubes, then pulse in a food processor rather than chopping by hand.
- Simmer, do not boil"Boiling water or broth" should be brought down to a bare simmer once the dumplings go in. A rolling boil batters them apart, which is the usual reason liver klosse fail.
- TimeHalf an hour suits large egg-shaped dumplings; at 1½ inches across, 15 to 20 minutes is enough. They are done when they float and the centre is set and no longer pink.
- Chives and parsleyA tablespoon of chopped chives is a generous amount by modern taste; the recipe includes no onion, so the chives are carrying that weight. Flat-leaf parsley works better than curly.
- The bacon dressingStreaky bacon, chopped small and fried in butter until the fat runs and the pieces colour, then poured over hot. A little of the poaching broth, reduced, suits them, as the dumplings are otherwise dry.
- YieldFour servings as written, which comes to two or three dumplings each. German versions are often served in clear soup, though here the bacon poured over suggests a dish served in its own right.
Klösse is simply the German for dumplings, and liver dumplings — Leberklöße or Leberknödel — are a staple of Bavarian and Austrian cooking, still commonly sold ready-made by butchers to be dropped into clear beef broth. The construction is the classic South German one: stale bread soaked and squeezed as the binder, egg and a dredge of flour to hold it, lemon zest and parsley to lift the iron of the offal. Cassell's, compiled in London in the 1870s and reissued for decades after, gathered continental dishes of this kind alongside English ones, and the spelling "klosse" reflects the usual anglicised dropping of the umlaut. The frugality is period-typical — the note about frying up leftover slices of liver in egg and crumbs assumes a cook who has bought a whole liver and intends to waste none of it, and the dish is costed at 10d for four.