Ethel Lloyd
CHICKEN LIVERS WITH CURRY
Clean the livers and dip in seasoned crumbs, beaten egg and crumbs again, then saute in butter. Remove livers to hot platter and add to fat in pan, two tablespoons butter and half tablespoon chopped onion and cook five minutes. Add two tablespoons flour mixed with half teaspoon curry powder, and half cup stock. Strain sauce over livers and serve with dry boiled rice on the side.
These are appetizing when you are tired of the usual dishes. Surely Ethel blond RICE SOUFFLÉ Grind four tablespoons rice and stir to smooth paste with one tablespoon butter and six tablespoons milk. Add remainder of pint of milk, put all into saucepan and stir until it thickens. Add beaten yolks of three eggs and three tablespoons sugar; stir well, also add well-beaten whites of three eggs. Mix thoroughly.
Two dishes run together under one name: a curried chicken-liver sauté and a sweet rice soufflé. The soufflé stops short — the original never tells you to bake it — so the notes below flag what is missing.
- The hinge: do not overcook the liversBreaded chicken livers need only a few minutes a side in hot butter. Pushed further they turn dry and chalky, which is the usual reason people say they dislike liver. For food safety, poultry liver should reach 165F right through, which happens quickly at that size; do not leave the centres pink.
- Breading"Seasoned crumbs" means dry fine breadcrumbs with salt and pepper. The crumb–egg–crumb sequence sticks far better if the livers are patted thoroughly dry first; they hold a lot of surface moisture.
- The curry sauceThis is a small roux: 2 tablespoons butter and onion, then 2 tablespoons flour with the curry powder, then only half a cup of stock. That ratio yields a very thick, almost paste-like sauce. Most cooks will want closer to a cup of stock for something pourable. Cooking the flour and curry powder together for a minute before the liquid goes in removes the raw taste of both.
- "Dry boiled rice"Period shorthand for rice boiled in plenty of salted water, drained, and dried out for a few minutes over low heat or in a warm oven — the opposite of the creamy or baked rice of the era's puddings.
- Grinding the riceFour tablespoons of raw rice ground fine in a spice grinder or blender; rice flour is the nearest modern equivalent, though it is finer than anything ground at home. Whole grains will not thicken in the time given.
- The pint of milkThe six tablespoons used to make the paste are part of the pint, not extra. Work up from paste to thin batter gradually or the rice flour will lump.
- What the soufflé recipe omitsAfter the whites are folded in, the mixture needs to go into a buttered dish and be baked in a moderate oven (around 350F) until set and risen; timing will depend on the dish, but expect something in the region of half an hour. Fold the whites in gently rather than mixing 'thoroughly' as written, and let the rice base cool to warm before the yolks and whites go in.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantity of livers, so no serving count can be inferred for them; the soufflé, built on a pint of milk and three eggs, serves four.
The stray line "Surely Ethel blond" reads like a garbled signature line — compare "Sincerely, Ethel Lloyd." The pairing of ideas is very much of its period: curry powder was a fixture of the American and British larder by then, valued exactly as the note says, for rescuing cooks tired of the usual dishes, while offal such as chicken livers was cheap, quick and considered smart in small savoury portions. The rice souffl ed of ground-grain milk puddings lightened with whipped egg white, a family that includes semolina and farina souffl ed.