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Bullock's Liver Fried with Potatoes
1182. This dish requires very peculiar management, as it is very apt to be made hard in the dressing. Two or three pounds of liver, in one lump, are to be stewed in a very small quantity of water for at least three hours; then take it out and stew an equal quantity of potatoes and of cabbages, carrots, or turnips, in the liquor, adding pepper and salt to the taste; when nearly done, but not quite, take them out of the liquor, and break them into small pieces about the size of a pigeon's egg; after which, having heated a little lard or dripping in a frying-pan, they, with the liver sliced thin, are to be put in and fried till they are sufficiently done. Lastly, after taking out the whole, the liquor is put into the pan, thickened with a little flour, and warmed up, when, on being poured over the liver, &c., the dish is complete, and is a very savoury one when properly prepared according to the above directions. The cost being as below, varying of course in certain localities, in some of which, for instance, bullock's liver is scarcely to be had at any price, and there these remarks will not apply. When, however, the prices are ascertained, the proper correction can readily be made. 3 lb. bullock's liver ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 2 lb. potatoes ... s. d. 06 ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 1 lb. cabbage or carrots ... ... 01 ... ... ... ... 2 oz. lard or dripping ... ... ... ... 0 of ... ... ... ... ...
Spice, flour, and salt ... ... 01 ... 800 ... ... ... ... ... 00 09 This will make, with one or two pounds of bread, a dinner for a labouring-man and his wife, together with from five to six children, according to their ages; the whole cost, with the bread, not exceeding one shilling, independently of the firing. If a smaller proportion of liver is used, the cost will be still less.
A frugal one-pan dinner from the era when ox liver was the cheapest meat in the shop. The method is sound in outline but the timings reflect an assumption about liver that modern cooks reverse.
- The hinge: liver and long cookingThe recipe blames hardness on careless "dressing" and prescribes three hours of stewing, then frying on top of that. Ox (bullock's) liver is lean and full of protein that seizes and dries out; anything past the point where the centre loses its rawness makes it grainy. If you cook this at all, treat the long simmer as the part to shorten drastically and slice the liver thin for a brief fry.
- Bullock's liverThis is ox or beef liver, from a castrated male beast raised for beef. It is far stronger and coarser than calf's or lamb's liver, and a butcher who stocks it will usually slice it for you. Soaking the slices in milk for an hour, then draining, tames the metallic edge.
- QuantitiesThree pounds of liver is roughly 1.4 kg, with two pounds (900 g) of potatoes and one pound (450 g) of cabbage, carrots or turnip. The original states its own yield: a labouring family of seven or eight, with a pound or two of bread alongside.
- "A very small quantity of water"The point is that the cooking liquid becomes the gravy, so there must be little enough of it to taste of something. The recipe gives no measure, and it must still be enough to stew the vegetables in afterwards.
- Dripping and lardBeef dripping is still the right fat here and gives the dish its character; lard or a neutral oil will do. Two ounces is about 55 g, which is generous by modern habit and can be halved.
- "Size of a pigeon's egg"Roughly an inch to an inch and a half long, about the size of a large walnut. The recipe says to break the vegetables into pieces rather than cut them.
- The gravyAfter frying, the reserved cooking liquor goes into the pan and is thickened with flour. Sprinkle the flour into the hot fat left behind before adding the liquid, or it will go lumpy; a scant tablespoon per cup of liquor is enough.
- CostsThe pence-and-shillings column is of historical interest only and gives no cooking information; ignore it.
Nineteenth-century British cookery books aimed at a broad readership often carried a strand of explicitly economical cookery, with costed recipes intended to show working households how to put a hot dinner on the table for a shilling. This entry belongs to that strand: the reckoning of who it will feed, the aside that bread must be counted in, and the careful note that fuel ("firing") is a separate expense all point to a reader for whom the arithmetic mattered more than the flavour. Ox liver was cheap meat, and unlike the more delicate calf's liver served in genteel kitchens it was associated with poverty cooking, which may be why the author is at pains to say the dish is "a very savoury one when properly prepared." The remark that in some places bullock's liver is "scarcely to be had at any price" is a reminder that supply of offal varied sharply from place to place.