No. 2222

Skewers of Chicken Livers, Colbert Sauce

Brochettes de Foies de Poulet, Sauce Colbert

Cut up into one-inch squares some chicken livers; season with salt and pepper and run them on to metal skewers (Fig. 176), intercalating each piece with a thin one-inch square of bacon; coat over with oil or melted butter, roll in bread-crumbs and broil over a slow fire; dress them on a Colbert sauce (No. 451).

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For the Modern Kitchen

A short entry that assumes you already own metal skewers and a pan of sauce. Two things decide whether it works: how dry the livers are before they are crumbed, and how gently they are broiled.

Dry the livers firstTrim the connective tissue and any greenish bile-stained patches, then pat the pieces thoroughly dry. Wet liver will not hold oil or crumbs, and the coating slides off on the grill.
"A slow fire" means moderate heatUnder a modern broiler, set the rack 5 to 6 inches from the element rather than directly beneath it, or use a grill pan over medium heat. High heat scorches the crumbs and burns the bacon fat before the liver centres are done.
TimingRoughly 3 to 4 minutes a side for one-inch pieces. Chicken liver should be cooked through for safety, but it turns chalky and grainy the moment it goes past that point, so pull the skewers as soon as the centres are firm and no longer red.
The baconModern thin-cut streaky bacon is often brine-pumped and so wetter than the bacon Ranhofer's kitchen would have used. Use the thinnest slices you can find so the fat renders in the same time the liver cooks; thick-cut will still be raw when the liver is finished.
"Intercalating"Simply alternate: liver, bacon square, liver, bacon square, packed snugly so the pieces support one another and the bacon bastes the liver as it renders.
SkewersMetal, as specified, and flat-bladed if you have them so the pieces do not spin when turned. Wooden skewers need a 30-minute soak and will still char under a broiler.
Colbert sauceThe cross-reference is to Ranhofer's own No. 451. In practice it is a reduced brown sauce or meat glaze finished off the heat with butter, lemon juice, chopped parsley and often tarragon. Add the butter with the pan off the heat or the sauce breaks.
YieldThe recipe gives no quantities; a pound of livers will make roughly eight skewers, enough for about four as an entree course. Pool the sauce on the plate and lay the skewers on it, as directed, rather than spooning it over the crumbs.

A Little History

Brochette is simply the French word for a small skewer, and skewered offal was common grill work in the professional kitchens of the late nineteenth century, where chicken livers were a by-product of drawing birds for roasting. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, published The Epicurean in 1894 as an exhaustive record of that kitchen's repertoire, which is why entries like this one are so telegraphic: they were written for cooks who already knew the sauces by number. Sauce Colbert is generally traced to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV's finance minister, though as with most such attributions the connection is honorific rather than documented; by Ranhofer's day it meant a lemon-and-parsley butter melted into a meat glaze, and the sharp, buttery acidity is exactly what rich broiled liver needs against it.