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Stuffed Calf's Liver
1 calf's liver 2 cups thin brown sauce 1/2 pound chopped cold ham Salt and pepper 1/2 cup stale bread crumbs 1/2 small onion chopped 1 tablespoon chopped parsley Pour Make a dressing of the ham, bread crumbs, onion and parsley, seasoning well and moistening with a little brown sauce. boiling water on the liver; let stand five minutes; then make a deep cut the entire length of the liver, beginning at the thick end. Fill the pouch; skewer the liver; lard it and put it in a baking pan with the brown sauce. Bake one hour and a quarter, basting frequently.
The typed original has its lines scrambled — the words "Pour" and "boiling water on the liver" belong together at the start. Read it as: scald the liver, cut the pocket, make the ham dressing, stuff, lard, then braise in the sauce.
- Order of workPour boiling water over the liver and let it stand five minutes first; this firms the surface and makes the deep lengthwise cut easier to control. Then mix the dressing and fill.
- Size of the liverA whole calf's liver is a few pounds — figure roughly 3 lb, serving six to eight. Ask the butcher for it in one piece, membrane removed, since liver is usually sold pre-sliced and sliced liver cannot be pocketed.
- Thin brown sauceIn period usage this meant espagnole or a plain roux-based gravy loosened with stock to pouring consistency — about 2 cups of well-flavored beef or veal stock thickened lightly with browned flour and butter. Canned beef gravy is not the same thing; a stock-based pan sauce is closer.
- Chopped cold hamCooked ham, cured and already salted. Season the dressing carefully before you commit to more salt, and use dry stale crumbs rather than soft fresh ones or the stuffing turns pasty.
- LardingThreading strips of pork fat through the meat with a larding needle. Lacking one, drape the liver with thin sheets of fatback or unsmoked bacon and tie them on — liver has almost no internal fat and dries out fast without help.
- SkeweringClose the pocket with small metal or bamboo skewers laced with butcher's twine, or simply tie the liver at intervals. The stuffing will push out otherwise.
- OvenThe recipe gives no oven temperature; a modern moderate oven, around 350F, is a reasonable guess. Baste frequently, as directed.
- TimingAn hour and a quarter is long for liver and gives the firm, sliceable, fully cooked-through result the period expected. Pulling it early for a rosier centre departs from the recipe, and guidance for variety meats such as liver puts them at 160F.
- ServingRest ten minutes, then cut crosswise into thick slices so each shows a band of ham dressing. Strain the pan sauce over.
Stuffing a whole calf's liver turned an organ meat into a company roast, and the ham-and-crumb forcemeat here is the familiar nineteenth-century "dressing" that also went into veal breast, shoulder of lamb and boned poultry. Calf's liver ranked above beef or pig liver in the market and in the cookbooks — milder, paler, and priced accordingly — which is why it earns a larded, sauced, oven treatment rather than the frying pan. The reliance on a made brown sauce as both moistener and braising liquid suggests a cook expected to keep stock and a brown sauce on hand.