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Broiled Liver and Bacon
As broiling in most cases is wasteful, the liver and bacon are generally fried together, but the dish is somewhat spoiled by this method. The best plan is to fry the well-trimmed slices of bacon, and after having washed and sliced the liver not too thick, say a third of an inch, dry it thoroughly on a cloth, flour it and dip into the bacon fat in the fryingpan and broil over a clear fire, adding pepper and salt while cooking. When done, lay each slice on a dish with a piece of bacon on each piece of liver.
A method note more than a formula: Oscar's point is that liver and bacon should be cooked separately, with the bacon fat used as the coating rather than the cooking medium. Everything else follows from that.
- The hinge: do not overcook the liverSlices a third of an inch thick need roughly 2 minutes a side under a hot broiler or on a grill, and should stay faintly pink at the centre. Liver taken past that point turns grainy and dry, which is the ruin the recipe is trying to avoid.
- "A clear fire"This means coals burned down past the smoke to steady red heat, with no flame licking the meat. A gas or charcoal grill at high heat, or a broiler element preheated 10 minutes with the rack close to it, gives the same result.
- Which liverThe recipe does not say which liver is meant; calf's liver is the likeliest reading for hotel service of the period. Beef liver is stronger and coarser and wants a soak in milk for an hour before it is dried; lamb's liver is a reasonable substitute and cooks a shade faster.
- Drying and flouringBoth steps matter more than they look. Wet liver steams instead of searing, and the thin flour coat is what holds the bacon fat against the surface so it browns rather than sticking to the bars.
- Rendering the baconFry the bacon slowly in a dry pan until crisp and reserve both the slices and the fat. Modern supermarket bacon is wet-cured and gives up water first, so give it longer than you expect before the fat runs clear.
- Seasoning while cookingSalt drawn onto the surface early pulls out moisture; adding it as the slices cook, as written, is sound. Season the second side after the first turn.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities. As a modern portion, figure 5 to 6 oz of liver and one or two rashers per person. The dish goes cold quickly, so warm the plates.
Liver and bacon is long-standing English tavern and chophouse cooking, the pairing being practical as much as anything: liver is lean and dries out, bacon supplies the fat it lacks. Oscar Tschirky, the Waldorf's ma"itre d'ho"tel, included a good deal of this plain Anglo-American fare alongside the hotel's French repertoire. The opening remark that "broiling in most cases is wasteful" may reflect a concern with the fat and juices lost to the fire, and it explains the small piece of technique at the heart of the entry: the fat does the work of a coating instead of being a pan of grease the liver sits in.