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Pig's Liver, Baked
Pig's liver may be dressed according to the directions given for calf's liver, but it is very good prepared as follows. Soak a fresh pig's liver and cut it into slices less than half an inch thick. Boil and mash two pounds of potatoes, and put a layer of them at the bottom of a well-buttered mould. Lay on this a few slices of the liver, with an equal number of slices of fat bacon, and sprinkle over the meat a little pepper, chopped parsley, minced onion, and powdered sage. Put in potatoes again, and repeat until the dish is full, remembering always that the topmost layer must consist of potatoes. Pour half a cupful of boiling stock or water over the whole, and bake in a well-heated oven. Turn the mould upon a hot dish, brown the top with a salamander, and serve. A large handful of parsley, two sage-leaves, two onions, and a tea-spoonful of pepper, will season this dish. The amount of salt required must be regulated by the quality of the bacon. Time to bake, two hours. Probable cost, 2s. Sufficient for three or four persons.
A layered liver-and-potato pudding baked in a mould and turned out. The construction is more forgiving than the two-hour bake suggests, because the liver is sealed between mashed potato and bacon fat.
- The mouldA deep metal or earthenware basin or a loaf tin, buttered heavily so the pudding releases. The recipe puts a layer of potato at the bottom and insists the topmost layer be potato; lining the sides as well is a modern addition.
- Oven temperature"A well-heated oven" is not a fixed figure; a moderately hot modern oven, somewhere in the region of 375-400F, is a reasonable reading. Covering the mould for part of the bake is a modern precaution, not something the original asks for.
- About that two hoursTwo hours is long for liver by modern standards, and the slices will be firm rather than pink. Cutting them a little thinner than half an inch, as instructed, and keeping them between potato and bacon is what stops them going to leather. If you want liver that is still rosy, this is not the dish for it.
- SoakingPig's liver is stronger and more mineral-tasting than calf's. The original soaks the liver before slicing it; milk or lightly salted water for about an hour is the usual modern method and helps the finished dish taste cleaner.
- Half a cupfulFour fluid ounces, about 120 ml, poured boiling over the assembled layers. It is there to steam the potato, not to make gravy, so do not increase it.
- Fat baconStreaky bacon or unsmoked pork belly cut thin. It is the fat, not the cure, that matters here — lean back bacon leaves the pudding dry. Judge the salt only after tasting the bacon, as the original says.
- SalamanderA heated iron plate held over food to brown it. A broiler or grill for two or three minutes does the same work once the pudding is turned out onto a hot dish.
- YieldThree or four as written, from two pounds of potatoes and one liver. The "probable cost, 2s." is a period costing for the household's accounts, not a measurement.
Liver baked under mashed potato belongs to the thrift end of British cookery, where offal bought by the pound was stretched with potato and made presentable by being turned out of a mould. Cassell's routinely gives a costing for its dishes. The seasoning — parsley, onion, sage, pepper — is the standard English pork-and-offal set, the same combination used in faggots and in sausage meat, sage being the herb long paired with pig meat in British kitchens. The instruction to dress pig's liver "according to the directions given for calf's liver" reflects the older hierarchy of the butcher's shop, in which calf's liver was the expensive delicacy and pig's liver the everyday substitute needing a soak and stronger seasoning to bring it into line.