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Liver and Bacon Sandwiches
1/2 cup chopped bacon 1/4 cup cream 1/2 cup mashed liver Salt and pepper Mix chopped bacon and mashed liver, season with pepper and salt, and mix with cream. Decorate the plate with a border of lemon slices and hard-boiled eggs cut into halves lengthwise, with a sprig of cress or parsley on each.
A leftovers filling of the type that fills this chapter: cooked meat reduced to a paste, loosened with cream, spread on thin bread. The original assumes both bacon and liver arrive already cooked.
- Both meats must be cookedNeither ingredient is cooked in the method. Fry the bacon crisp and drain it, and cook the liver through — calf's or chicken liver, sauteed or simmered until no pink remains — before chopping and mashing. The filling itself gets no heat at all.
- TextureLiver mashes more smoothly while still warm; once cold it tends to crumble and takes up the cream less readily. A short pulse in a food processor gives a smoother paste than a fork, but stop before it becomes gluey.
- Cream1/4 cup of cream to 1 cup of solids is a spreading consistency, not a dip. Heavy cream holds better than half-and-half; add it a spoonful at a time, since liver varies in how dry it cooks.
- SeasoningLiver and bacon together are salty and iron-heavy. Taste before adding salt, and consider a little lemon juice or mustard; the recipe's own lemon garnish is at least available at the table.
- The breadNo bread is specified. Thin-cut white or rye, crusts trimmed, buttered to the edges so the filling does not soak in.
- YieldAbout 1 1/4 cups of filling — roughly six to eight tea sandwiches, or four full rounds.
- KeepingMake the filling the day you serve it and keep it refrigerated. Cooked liver paste with cream in it sours quickly and is best not held over.