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Bacon
Pepper. Cayenne. Salt. Croûtes.
Parsley. One Shalot.
Wash and drain the livers, sprinkle them over with a little pepper, salt, and cayenne and a dust of very finely chopped parsley and shalot. Cut some bacon into very thin strips and roll one liver in each strip of bacon. Place each roll on a fried croûte, and cook in the oven for five minutes. Serve very hot.
A savoury of chicken livers wrapped in bacon and set on fried bread, meant to close a formal dinner. It is quick, but the timing given assumes a much hotter oven than most people would reach for.
- The liversChicken livers are most likely what is meant, though the recipe does not say. Trim the connective tissue and any greenish patch, then pat them thoroughly dry, otherwise they steam inside the bacon rather than roast.
- Cook them throughPoultry liver carries campylobacter, and the pathogen is not confined to the surface. Five minutes is only enough in a hot oven and with small livers; cook until the centre is firm and no longer red, not pink and bloody in the middle.
- ShalotShallot. Chop it as finely as the parsley so it does not scorch.
- The baconUse thin-cut streaky bacon, not back, and stretch each strip with the flat of a knife before rolling so it clings. A cocktail stick through each roll stops it unwinding. Bacon this thin will crisp in the same time the liver needs.
- CroûtesRounds or fingers of stale bread fried in butter or clarified fat and drained. Cut them a shade larger than the roll and fry them in advance; they only need warming through in the oven.
- Oven heatSet it high and use the upper shelf, or finish briefly under the grill to colour the bacon. A moderate oven will leave the bacon flabby before the liver is done.
- SeasoningBacon brings its own salt, so salt the livers lightly. The cayenne is the point of the dish and should be assertive enough to notice.
- Yield and serviceAllow one or two rolls a head as a savoury. Serve them straight from the oven, as the recipe directs, while the croûte is still crisp.
The savoury was the last course of a late-Victorian and Edwardian dinner, served after the sweet and before dessert fruit, and it was expected to be small, hot, sharply seasoned and eaten in a bite or two. Whole families of them follow this pattern: oysters in bacon as angels on horseback, prunes in bacon as devils on horseback, and liver treated the same way here. The croûte of fried bread is doing structural work as much as culinary, giving the guest something to lift with a fork without the roll sliding across the plate. Chicken livers were a natural choice for the course because a kitchen roasting birds had them to hand at no cost, and the savoury course was traditionally where a good cook made something impressive out of trimmings.