Panned Liver
1 pound beef liver sliced very thin 3 medium sized onions, sliced Salt and pepper 1/2 cup Mazola Scald the liver, dry on a towel, remove the outer skin and membranes. Fry the onions until soft and yellowed, in one-half cup Mazola. Remove the onions and keep hot; fry the liver first on one side, then the other in the Mazola, allowing about six minutes. Dust with salt and pepper and serve garnished with the onions.
A straightforward liver-and-onions from a corn oil promotional booklet. The only real technique here is heat management: liver goes from tender to grainy in under a minute.
- MazolaA brand of refined corn oil, still sold. Any neutral oil with a high smoke point works the same way; the recipe specifies it because the booklet was published to sell it.
- Half a cup is a lotThat much oil in a skillet is closer to shallow frying than panning. Two to three tablespoons is enough to soften the onions and film the pan for the liver, unless you want the fuller, richer result the original intends.
- Six minutes is the outer limitFor slices cut "very thin," two to three minutes per side is plenty. Liver held past the point where the centre turns from rosy to grey-brown goes dry and mealy, and no sauce recovers it.
- ScaldingPouring boiling water over the slices loosens the outer membrane so it peels away cleanly. It is worth doing, since that membrane shrinks in the pan and curls the slices, but dry the liver thoroughly afterward or it will steam rather than brown.
- Salt at the end, as writtenThe recipe dusts with salt and pepper after frying rather than before. Salting raw liver draws moisture to the surface, which can work against browning.
- Onions first, and low"Soft and yellowed" suggests slow cooking, roughly 15 to 20 minutes over medium-low heat, rather than a hard fry. Cooking them first leaves the flavoured oil for the liver.
- YieldA pound of liver serves three to four. It does not reheat well; cook only what will be eaten.
Recipes like this one come from the era when American food companies published small cookbooks to teach households what to do with a new product. Mazola, a refined corn oil from the Corn Products Refining Company, reached the market in the early 1910s and was promoted as a clean, neutral cooking fat for a kitchen accustomed to butter, lard and beef drippings -- hence the insistence on measuring out a half cup of it by name. Beef liver itself needed no promotion: cheap, quickly cooked, and often recommended in the period as strengthening or blood-building, it was common weekday fare long before iron and vitamin A were understood. The pairing with slow-cooked onions long predates this booklet.