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Simple Way of Cooking Liver
Wash calf's liver and heart thoroughly; chop them fine as possible, after they have been boiled till very tender; then add pepper and salt, and one tablespoonful flour, straining into it a little of the water.--Mrs. J. P. H.
A two-line recipe of the kind that assumes the cook already knows what she is doing. The whole result depends on how you treat the liver in the pot.
- The hinge: don't boil the liver hardLiver does not get tender with long cooking the way heart does; it gets grainy and dry. Simmer the heart first until a knife goes in easily (1 1/2 to 2 hours), then add the liver for the last 20-30 minutes at a bare simmer.
- Calf's liver and heartVeal liver is still sold at good butchers and is milder than beef; veal heart usually has to be ordered. Beef liver and heart substitute directly but taste stronger, so soak the liver in milk for an hour and discard the milk.
- Trimming, which the recipe skipsPeel the membrane from the liver and cut out the large vessels and the tough silverskin from inside the heart before boiling. Missing them leaves rubbery threads that chopping will not break down.
- "Chop fine as possible"This is a hand-chopped hash, not a puree. A food processor will turn boiled liver to paste in seconds, so pulse two or three times at most, or chop on a board with a heavy knife.
- The flourOne tablespoon of raw flour stirred into the meat will taste pasty. Cook it in a little butter or the skimmed fat first, then whisk in the cooking liquid and simmer two or three minutes before combining.
- "A little of the water"Unspecified. Start with about 1/2 cup of the strained cooking broth per pound of meat and add more until the mixture holds together but is not soupy.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no quantities; as a working guide, about one pound of liver plus one heart will feed four. Serve it hot on toast, over rice, or with mashed potatoes; leftovers set firm when cold and can be sliced or spread.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia, compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree and published in 1877, gathered contributions from hundreds of Virginia housekeepers, which is why so many entries end in initials rather than a name -- a practice often attributed to the courtesy of the period, since a lady's full name in print was thought forward. Recipes like this one reflect a household economy in which an animal was used entire: liver and heart were the parts that had to be eaten within a day or two of slaughter, before curing or salting could preserve the rest. Boiled-and-chopped offal dishes of this sort, thickened with a spoonful of flour and their own broth, appear across nineteenth-century American cookbooks under names like liver hash and minced liver, and they served at breakfast as well as at supper.