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Baked Liver with Vegetables
1 tablespoon bacon fat 2 cups diced celery 1 large onion 2 lbs. whole liver 1/2 cup hot water 3 slices bacon 12 small potatoes 1/4 cup flour 1 teaspoon salt pepper 1 cup stewed or canned tomatoes Heat bacon fat in pan which has tight cover, add celery and sliced onion and brown slightly. Dredge the liver with a little of the flour and place in pan. Put the bacon over top of liver, add water and salt. Bake, covered closely, in hot oven 500 degrees 1/2 hour. Then add the potatoes. Cover and bake till potatoes are done. Uncover and brown bacon. Remove vegetables and meat, add flour to liquid in pan, stir smooth, add tomatoes, season and serve as sauce in separate dish.
A one-pot braise built on a whole lobe of liver rather than slices, with the pan juices turned into a tomato gravy at the end. The oven figure as printed is extreme and is the first thing to adjust.
- That 500 degree ovenHalf an hour at 500F in a covered pan will scorch the bacon fat and the flour dredge before the liver is set. Bake covered at 375-400F instead, allowing 40-45 minutes before the potatoes go in; the closed lid does the real work by trapping steam.
- Buy the liver wholeTwo pounds of unsliced calf's or beef liver is a butcher's order now, not a supermarket one. Calf's liver is milder and finer-grained; beef liver is stronger and benefits from a 30-minute soak in milk, drained and patted dry before dredging.
- Do not overcook itLiver turns dry and grainy once it is cooked hard, and no amount of sauce hides it. Cooks who want it faintly pink work to about 145-150F, but note that official guidance for liver and other variety meats is 160F. Check with a thermometer when the potatoes are nearly tender and pull the meat early if need be, returning it to rest under the bacon.
- Bacon fatOne tablespoon of rendered bacon drippings; any neutral fat or butter substitutes, though you lose some of the smoke that ties the dish together. The three bacon slices on top baste the meat and are browned uncovered at the end.
- Small potatoesTwelve "small" potatoes means egg-sized new or creamer potatoes, whole and unpeeled, roughly 1 1/2 lb. Larger potatoes cut into 2-inch chunks work as well but will absorb more of the liquid.
- The panA heavy Dutch oven with a well-fitting lid is exactly what is wanted. Half a cup of water is not much liquid, so the seal matters; if the lid is loose, cover with foil beneath it.
- The sauceReserve the flour not used for dredging, probably 3 tablespoons or so, and stir it into the hot pan liquid off the heat until smooth before adding the tomatoes, or it will lump. Simmer two or three minutes to cook out the raw flour taste. The recipe leaves pepper unmeasured; a quarter teaspoon suits.
- YieldServes six generously, or four with leftovers. Sliced across the grain, the liver carves more neatly after ten minutes' rest.
This appears under Invalid Cookery because liver was, in the decades either side of 1930, a near-medicinal food. Minot and Murphy's 1926 work showing that liver in quantity reversed pernicious anemia contributed to the Nobel Prize awarded in 1934, and pushed liver onto the plates of the sick, the pregnant and the pale for a generation; cookbooks of the period are full of ways to make a large quantity of it palatable. The strategy here is characteristic: keep the lobe whole so it stays moist, lay bacon over it for fat and smoke, surround it with celery, onion and potatoes so the meal needs nothing else, and serve the tomato-thickened pan liquid separately so a squeamish patient can take the meat plain. The result is closer to a pot roast than to the fried liver and onions of the same era.