Home › The Principles of Cookery › Liver Puddings
Liver Puddings
Take half an ox liver; clear it from skin, boil, and grate it. Mix with it its bulk in bread-crumbs, and finely-shredded suet. Season rather highly with black pepper; add a little salt, grated nutmeg, and a glassful of rum. Have the pudding skins well cleaned, tie one end, and turn them inside out. Half fill them with the mixture, and tie them in three or four places at equal distances. Put them into water which is nearly on the point of boiling. In five minutes prick them with a large darning needle to prevent them bursting, and let them boil for half an hour. Liver sausages should be kept in a cool place until wanted for use. Before serving, boil for a quarter of an hour, and then broil them. Probable cost, exclusive of the rum, 2s. 6d. Sufficient for ten or twelve persons.
A fresh liver sausage, poached and then reheated and grilled to serve. The whole thing hinges on temperature: the water must never reach a rolling boil while the puddings are cooking, or the filling swells and splits the casings.
- Half an ox liverA whole beef liver runs 10-12 lb, so half is a large quantity for a modern kitchen. Scale down to roughly 2 lb of liver, with its own bulk in fresh breadcrumbs and shredded beef suet; the recipe gives no weight for the suet and no length of casing.
- "Its bulk in bread-crumbs"This is a volume measure, not a weight: equal volumes of grated liver and crumbs. Use dry-ish crumbs from stale bread rather than packaged fine crumb, which packs tighter and gives a pasty texture.
- Boil, and grate itSimmer the liver 15-20 minutes until firm all through, cool it completely, then grate. Chilled firm liver grates cleanly; warm liver smears. A food processor pulsed in short bursts does the same job, but stop while the texture is still coarse.
- A glassful of rumThe recipe says only "a glassful"; read as a wineglass, Victorian usage puts that at about 2 fl oz. For the scaled-down quantities above 2 fl oz is a reasonable reading; much of the alcohol cooks off, leaving sweetness and warmth against the iron of the liver.
- Pudding skinsNatural hog casings, sold salted by butchers and online. Modern casings are packed clean and only need soaking in cold water and flushing through; there is no need to turn them inside out as the original directs. Fill them half full, as stated, because the crumbs swell.
- Water "nearly on the point of boiling"Bring it up as directed and keep it at a bare simmer rather than a rolling boil. The recipe then says to let them boil for half an hour, and relies on pricking with a large needle after the first five minutes to stop them bursting.
- StorageThis is a fresh sausage, not a cured one. "A cool place" meant a larder; refrigerate at or below 40F and use within three days, or freeze.
- ServingThe final quarter-hour boil is a reheat; keep it at a bare simmer again. Then grill or pan-fry until the skin blisters and browns. The yield given, ten to twelve, is for the full quantity.
- Probable cost, 2s. 6d.Roughly two and a half shillings for the whole batch. The rum is excluded from the reckoning.
Liver sausage belongs to the old butchery economy in which nothing from a slaughtered beast was wasted, and the soft organs, which spoil fastest, were cooked and cased within a day or two. It sits among the puddings made in skins, alongside black and white pudding, though the seasoning here with nutmeg and spirit has a Continental leberwurst character. Ox liver was the cheap grade, coarser and stronger than calf's, and the bread-crumbs and suet are there as much to stretch it and soften its mineral edge as to bind. The instruction to keep the puddings in a cool place and reheat before serving reflects a kitchen with a larder rather than a refrigerator: they were made in a batch when the liver came in and eaten across the following days.