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Calf's Liver En Casserole
1 calf's liver 6 slices bacon 1 cup button mushrooms 3 cups potato balls 1 pint brown stock Wash a calf's liver thoroughly and wipe dry. Fry some bacon in a pan, remove, place the liver in the bacon fat, and sear each side thoroughly. Transfer to a casserole, add slices of bacon, brown stock, and sauted mushrooms. Cook for one hour and a half in the oven (350 degrees F.) adding more stock if necessary. Just before serving add potato balls which have been fried in deep fat (395 degrees F.) and drained.
A whole calf's liver braised in a covered pot, with the garnishes cooked separately and added at the end. The recipe assumes a butcher's whole liver rather than the sliced liver sold today.
- The liver itselfA whole calf's liver runs roughly 3 to 4 lb; a modern butcher will usually sell you a lobe of 2 to 3 lb on request. Sliced liver from a supermarket tray will not work here, as it has no mass to survive a long braise.
- The hinge: cooking timeAn hour and a half at 350F will take liver well past grainy and dry. If you braise a whole lobe, check the centre at 45 minutes and pull it at about 145-150F internal, when it is still faintly rosy.
- Brown stockA pint (2 cups) of well-reduced beef or veal stock. Commercial low-sodium beef broth works but is thin; reduce it by a third first so the pan liquid has body enough to serve as sauce.
- "Casserole"Here the word means the vessel: a deep earthenware or enamelled pot that goes from stove to oven. A Dutch oven is the direct equivalent. The recipe does not say whether to cover it, though a lid will keep the pint of stock from reducing away over an hour and a half.
- Potato ballsScooped from raw potatoes with a melon baller (the parisienne cut). Three cups is about 2 lb of potatoes before trimming. Keep them in cold water until frying or they will discolour.
- Deep-fat temperature395F is high for raw potato and will colour the outside before the centre softens. Blanch the balls at around 300F until tender, drain, then finish at 375-395F for colour. Add them to the pot at the table, not before, or they go soft.
- Button mushroomsWhole small white mushrooms, sauteed in the reserved bacon fat until their water has cooked off. Sliced cremini are a reasonable substitute.
- YieldA liver of this size serves six to eight, sliced across the lobe and moistened with the braising liquid.