Fried Liver
Cut the slices thin, scald them for some minutes, put them in a pan with hot lard, and fry slowly till browned on both sides; and a little salt and pepper. Take up the liver, and pour into the pan half a teacup of water; let it boil a few minutes; put the liver back, stir it up, and cover it up for a short time to keep it from being hard.
Kidneys can be cooked the same way, excepting you must add some butter, as they are very dry.--Mrs. P.W.
A plain skillet method with a pan sauce tacked on, written for cooks who already knew what liver should look like. Two of its instructions run against modern practice, and one is the whole point of the dish.
- The hinge: do not fry it slowlyLiver toughens the longer it sits over heat. Thin slices want a hot pan and only a couple of minutes a side, until browned outside and just cooked through. The recipe's own final step -- returning it to the pan covered, "to keep it from being hard" -- suggests the slow frying has already firmed the meat.
- What "scald" means hereA dip in boiling water; the recipe says "some minutes," longer than a modern cook would give it, to firm the slices and draw off blood. Scalding liver appears in a number of nineteenth-century books, usually for strong beef liver. It is not needed for calf's or lamb's liver, and it costs you the dry surface that browning depends on. If you do scald, pat the slices bone dry before they meet the fat.
- Which liverUnspecified. Calf's liver is mildest and best suited to this treatment; beef liver is stronger and coarser; pork liver is strongest of all. Slice about 1/4 to 3/8 inch thick, and pull off the thin outer membrane or the slices will curl.
- Half a teacup of waterA period teacup runs smaller than a modern measuring cup, commonly reckoned at 4 to 6 fl oz, so half of one is only about 2 to 3 fl oz. It is deglazing liquid, meant to lift the browned fond into a thin gravy. Stock or a splash of wine does the job better than water.
- Hot lardUse enough to film the pan generously, a tablespoon or two. Lard is worth seeking out for the flavor; bacon drippings are a common substitute, and butter with a little oil works if the heat is watched.
- KidneysBeef and veal kidney need trimming of the hard white core and a soak -- an hour in cold salted water or milk -- before cooking, which this recipe assumes you know. Lamb kidneys, halved, need nothing but a hot pan and about 3 minutes. Mrs. P.W. is right that they want added butter.
- YieldFigure 4 to 6 oz of liver per person, so about 1 lb serves three. Onions fried in the same fat and a slice of bacon are the usual accompaniments; the pan gravy wants rice, potatoes or cornbread under it.
Fried liver belongs to the economy of a household that butchered its own animals: the organs had to be used within a day or two, so they went straight into the skillet while the hams and shoulders went to the smokehouse. Housekeeping in Old Virginia, compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree and published in 1879, gathered contributions from some 250 Virginia housekeepers, which is why so many entries end in initials rather than a name -- Mrs. P.W. is one voice in a collective, and her recipe assumes a reader who has handled liver before. The scalding step she calls for appears in other cookery of the period and was often explained as a way to draw out blood and firm the flesh for slicing. The closing note on kidneys, added almost as an afterthought, is characteristic of the book's practical compression: one technique, two organs, no wasted words.