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Fried Calf's Liver
Cut three onions in pieces; sauté in four tablespoons butter; cover with one cup white stock; add one half teaspoon salt, one teaspoon chopped parsley, one teaspoon lemon juice. Cook one half hour.
Cut liver in one half inch slices; sauté in four tablespoons butter; add sauce; cook five minutes. Serve; garnish with parsley and slices of lemon.
A straightforward liver-and-onion sauté with a light stock sauce. The only real risk is overcooking the liver, which the original's brisk five minutes already guards against.
- Don't overcook the liverHalf-inch slices need only a minute or two per side in the butter, then five minutes in the sauce to finish. Liver taken past faintly pink inside turns grainy and livery; pull it while the centre still has a blush.
- Soak and trim firstThe recipe assumes a butcher-prepared liver. Peel off the outer membrane and cut out any tough tubes, and if the liver is strong-smelling, a 20-30 minute soak in milk mellows it.
- White stockVeal or chicken stock made without browning the bones. Unsalted chicken stock is the practical substitute; if the stock you use is already salted, hold back on the half teaspoon the recipe calls for.
- Sauté means shallow-fry in butterSauté means cooking in butter in an open pan -- Four tablespoons for three onions is generous but is what the recipe specifies, and it is what the liver is fried in as well.
- The onions want timeHalf an hour in stock leaves them soft and sweet, closer to a compote than a garnish. Keep the pan at a bare simmer and add a splash more stock if it dries out.
- Dredging is optionalLowney's leaves the liver undusted. A light coat of seasoned flour before the butter gives a better crust and thickens the sauce slightly, which some cooks will prefer.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantity for the liver. Reckoning on roughly a pound with the three onions, expect about three servings as an entrée course, or two as a main plate with potatoes.
Calf's liver held a rank that beef liver never did: it was the tender, mild offal, and turn-of-the-century American cookbooks list it among entrées. The pairing with slow-cooked onions is old and widespread — the Venetian *fegato alla veneziana* is the best-known version — the sweetness of long-cooked onion being a standard foil for liver's mineral edge. The lemon juice and lemon-slice garnish here do the same work from the other direction. Lowney's was published by the Walter M. Lowney Company, a Boston chocolate manufacturer, and written by Maria Willett Howard; this entry is typical of the book's manner in giving no quantity for the main ingredient.