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Baked Liver
1 lb. calf's liver. 1 chopped onion. 3 heaping tablespoonfuls bread crumbs 1 teaspoonful chopped parsley 1/4 teaspoonful powdered herbs I chopped onion Salt and pepper to taste Sliced bacon 1/2 pint (I cup) water Cut the liver into slices one-third of an inch thick, wash and dry thoroughly, lay it in a well-buttered casserole. 1/2 pint (1 cup) water.
Make a forcemeat with the bread crumbs, chopped parsley, herbs, chopped onion, salt and pepper to taste, cover each strip of liver with this, and on the top place a strip of bacon.
Pour round the water and bake slowly for one hour.
A plain braise dressed up with a crumb stuffing. The ingredient list omits the liver itself, which tells you how routine the dish was assumed to be.
- How much liverThe original lists everything but the main ingredient. The quantities of crumbs, onion and water suit about 1 to 1 1/2 lb of liver — calf's or lamb's for tenderness, pig's or ox liver for a stronger, cheaper dish.
- "Casserole" herePresumably an ovenproof earthenware baking dish; the recipe does not specify a lid or the material. Water is poured round rather than over the liver, which has the effect of leaving the crumb topping dry enough to brown while the liver braises.
- Slow ovenBake slowly -- The recipe gives no temperature; a low oven of roughly 300–325F is a reasonable modern reading.
- ForcemeatAn old word for a seasoned stuffing mixture. As written it is dry crumbs, onion and herbs, which will not hold together on a slice of liver; bind it with a beaten egg or a knob of softened butter, and press it on firmly.
- Powdered herbsPeriod shorthand for dried mixed herbs ground fine; thyme, marjoram and savory are among the herbs used in such mixtures. A quarter teaspoon of dried thyme and marjoram together is a workable modern equivalent.
- The hour is too longThird-inch slices of liver are cooked through well before an hour, and a long bake gives a grainy, dry texture. Check them from about 30 to 35 minutes, cooking until no longer pink at the centre, and finish the bacon under the broiler if it needs colour.
- Soaking, not washingWashing and drying the liver was standard direction in books of this period. More useful now is a 20-minute soak in milk, then a thorough pat dry, which softens the mineral edge of ox or pig's liver.
- ServingEnough for four. The liquid in the dish is thin; strain it, reduce it hard for a few minutes and pour it back, or serve with mashed potato to take it up.
Fireproof earthenware cookery was popular in Britain and America in the early years of the twentieth century, and small single-subject books like this one traded on the promise that one dish could go from oven to table, saving fuel and washing-up. Liver was an obvious candidate: cheap and quick-cooking. The crumb-and-herb forcemeat is the older English device of stretching a small amount of meat with seasoned bread, the same logic that fills a roast fowl or a baked heart, and the strip of bacon over the top supplies fat that liver lacks. Offal was commonly cooked thoroughly in this period, a practice modern cooks have largely abandoned.