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Calf's Liver Fried
Remove the skin, and cut into slices large but thin, roll in flour, dip in egg, and fry in boiling lard, allowing them to remain in the frying-pan only a couple of minutes; then drain on a napkin, sprinkle on a little salt, and serve.
A two-minute fry that lives or dies on the thickness of the slice and the heat of the fat. Everything else is preparation.
- The hinge: slice thin, fry fastThe original asks only for slices "large but thin"; something on the order of 1/4 inch will cook through in the time the coating takes to colour. Liver held past the point where the centre loses its pink turns grainy and dry, and no amount of sauce recovers it.
- "Remove the skin"This is the fine outer membrane on a whole lobe of calf's liver. Slide a knife tip under it at one edge and pull it away in a sheet; if left on it shrinks in the pan and curls the slices.
- Flour then egg, in that orderThe flour gives the beaten egg something to grip. Let the coated slices sit a minute before they go in so the layer sets.
- "Boiling lard"Lard does not boil; the phrase means fat hot enough to bubble briskly around what is put in it, roughly 350-375F. Use enough to come a third of the way up the slices and bring it back to heat between batches. Any neutral fat with a high smoke point works, though lard gives the flavour intended here.
- DrainingA napkin was the period's paper towel. Use paper or a rack, and keep drained slices in a low oven rather than stacked, which steams the crust soft.
- SaltingSalt after frying, as written. Salt on raw liver draws out moisture and loosens the coating.
- YieldThe original gives no quantity; roughly 1 1/2 lb of liver would serve four as a main course. Fried liver is often sent to table with a lemon half for squeezing, though the original does not mention it.
- BuyingCalf's liver is milder and finer-grained than beef liver, which is not a straight substitute at these timings. Order it from a butcher and ask for it cut from the centre of the lobe in even slices.
Fried liver in flour and egg is one of the plainest expressions of a dish found the length of Italy, most famously as fegato alla veneziana with onions in Venice and as fegato fritto in Tuscan and Roman cooking, where offal was cheap, quick and eaten without ceremony. The egg-and-flour coating, rather than breadcrumbs, gives a thin skin that seals the slice instead of a crust that competes with it.