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Liver Terrapin
Cut cooked beef liver into dice. Put some butter or bacon fat in frying pan, let liver simmer in it till slightly brown, add flour, then stock from extract of beef to make a good sauce. Add little chopped parsley, 1 hard cooked egg cut fine. Cook till thoroughly heated through, serve on toast points.
A mock terrapin: cooked liver in a brown sauce finished with hard-cooked egg, in imitation of the diamondback terrapin stews that were still fashionable when this was written. The original gives no quantities, so the proportions below are the ones that make the sauce behave.
- Working quantitiesFor two servings, figure about 8 oz cooked beef liver, 2 tablespoons fat, 2 tablespoons flour and 1 cup stock. That is a standard 1:1 flour-to-fat roux, thickened to a coating sauce rather than a gravy.
- The hinge: the liver is already cookedThe frying pan step is for browning and flavour only. Cooked liver held over heat past a few minutes turns dry and chalky, so brown it briefly and keep the final reheating short; note that the recipe leaves the liver in the pan while the sauce is built around it.
- Cooking the liver firstIf you are starting from raw, simmer or gently pan-cook a slice of beef liver until just firm through, then cool and dice. Overcooking is usually blamed for liver's reputation for grittiness.
- Extract of beefThis means a concentrated meat paste of the Bovril or Liebig type, dissolved in hot water. A bouillon cube or a spoonful of commercial beef base in 1 cup water is the direct equivalent; if using homemade stock, expect to salt it yourself, since the extracts were heavily salted.
- Butter or bacon fatBacon fat gives a smokier, saltier result and was the cheaper option, being a by-product of the pan.
- Toast pointsOrdinary firm white bread, toasted, crusts trimmed, cut corner to corner into triangles. Set them under and around the liver.
- SeasoningThe recipe names only parsley. A few grinds of pepper and a little salt to taste; a small spoonful of sherry at the end echoes the terrapin dishes this one imitates, where sherry or Madeira was common.
- YieldOn the quantities suggested above, two modest servings. It is best eaten at once; the sauce tightens and the liver stiffens on standing.
"Terrapin" in an American cookbook of this period meant diamondback turtle stewed in a rich sauce, commonly garnished with chopped or sieved hard-cooked egg, the egg standing in for the prized eggs found inside the female turtle. Real terrapin was a luxury of Baltimore and Philadelphia dining rooms, and mock versions built on veal, chicken, sweetbreads or, as here, liver appeared, identified as terrapin largely by the sauce-and-egg treatment. Concentrated beef extract was widely recommended as a strengthening food for invalids and the recovering, and the small quantity, soft texture and toast base fit the era's rules for feeding a patient expected to eat little and often.