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Braised Lamb's Liver
There are many who may not know that a lamb's liver is quite as delicate as one from a calf while it has the additional merit of being less expensive. For braising arrange it in a small deep pan or in a casserole, on a bed of vegetablessliced onions, carrots and turnips-add a bouquet of herbs (parsley, savory and thyme) and about 1 pint of stock sauce or water. Stewed tomatoes may be added and 1 teaspoonful of chopped green pepper. Bake in a moderate oven for from two to three hours keeping the dish closely covered.
A whole-lobe braise rather than the quick sauté most cooks associate with liver. The original leaves the size of the liver, the quantity of vegetables and the yield entirely to the cook, so the notes below fill those gaps.
- The timing is the hingeTwo to three hours will leave lamb's liver dry and crumbly by modern taste; the long braise was meant to make an inexpensive organ meat tender and sliceable rather than juicy. A whole lobe of 1 to 1.5 lb is cooked through at 60-75 minutes covered, and holds a much better texture.
- Moderate oven350F. The pot should be barely bubbling, not simmering hard, or the liver tightens and squeezes out its moisture.
- CasseroleHere the word means the lidded pot itself, not a baked dish. Any heavy covered pan just large enough to hold the liver will do; too wide a pan and the pint of liquid will not come up around the vegetables.
- Stock sauceThe phrase is unclear as printed, and may be a slip for 'stock, sauce or water'. Ordinary beef or chicken stock is the substitute; water gives a noticeably thinner result.
- The vegetable bedRoughly a large onion, two carrots and one small turnip, sliced about a quarter-inch thick, is enough to lift the liver off the pan bottom. They are as much a rack as a garnish, though they are worth serving.
- Bouquet of herbsParsley, savory and thyme tied with string or in a scrap of cheesecloth, so it lifts out whole. Savory here is most likely summer savory; it is peppery and hard to find fresh, and dried works here.
- Membrane and tubesNot mentioned in the original. Peel off the outer membrane and cut out the larger tubes before the liver goes into the pot, or the slices will pull apart awkwardly at the table.
- Yield and servingA 1.5 lb lobe serves four. Slice it across, spoon the vegetables and pan liquid over, and reduce the liquid on the stovetop first if it has stayed thin.
Liver was the cheap organ meat that respectable cookbooks kept trying to talk households into, and this entry opens with exactly that argument: lamb's liver is as delicate as calf's and costs less. Calf's liver was the prestige version, priced accordingly, while lamb's and pig's liver went to plainer tables. The braising method belongs to a family of dishes in which the liver is cooked whole on a bed of aromatics rather than cut into slices and fried. The optional stewed tomatoes and chopped green pepper read as an American addition to the older braise.