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Poor Man's Goose
1 lb. liver 1 slice fat bacon 2 large sliced onions 1½ pints (3 cups) mashed cooked beans or potatoes Salt and pepper to taste 1/2 teaspoonful powdered sage 1 pint (2 cups) gravy or stock Apple sauce Take the slice of bacon and the liver and fry them a light brown. Now fry the onions. Line a fireproof dish with most of the beans or potatoes, add a layer of the liver and bacon, then a layer of onions. Sprinkle with the salt, pepper "Carpet Bag" is a round steak split half through and stuffed with oysters. It is closed like a sandwich and roasted until cooked "Love in Disguise is a dinner dish of calf's heart and vermicelli served with brown gravy "Poor Man's Goose"-the name is cruelly ironic-is made of liver. But liver is as nourishing as goose, and if carefully cooked it tastes just as good
A liver-and-bacon layered bake with a name that promises more than it delivers. The method is straightforward, but the ingredient list and the finish both need filling in before you cook.
- The liver is the dishLiver is called for by name in the method but never given a quantity. Reckon on 1 lb of lamb's or pig's liver, sliced about 1/2 inch thick, for the amounts of onion, bacon and potato given here.
- The measures"1/2 pints (3 cups)" of mashed beans or potatoes is almost certainly 1 1/2 pints. The book's own "I pint (2 cups)" shows it is using a 10 fl oz cup, so 1 1/2 Imperial pints (30 fl oz) and three such cups agree. Reckon on roughly 1 1/2 lb of potatoes raw to get there.
- Fat bacon"Fat bacon" means streaky bacon or fatty salt pork, used as much for the rendered fat as for the meat. The recipe asks for a single slice; if it does not yield enough fat to fry the liver and then the onions in sequence, add another.
- Do not brown the liver hardFry it only to a light colour, as written. Liver that is properly seared and then baked for the better part of an hour comes out grey and grainy; the frying is for flavour, and the baking finishes it.
- Oven and timeThe text as it survives breaks off before any baking instruction, so no temperature or time is given here. A covered dish at 350F for 45 minutes to an hour brings the whole thing together and reduces the gravy; uncover for the last 10 minutes if you want the top layer to colour.
- The sageHalf a teaspoon of powdered sage is what carries the "goose" idea, since sage and onion is the traditional stuffing for the bird. Powdered sage is fine and packs densely, so half a teaspoon is potent; if you are substituting rubbed sage, which measures much lighter, you will need more than half a teaspoon for the same effect.
- Apple sauceListed as an ingredient but unused in the method as far as the text runs before it breaks off. It is served alongside, again in imitation of roast goose, not baked into the dish.
- YieldEnough for four as a main course with a green vegetable.
The English kitchen has a long habit of giving cheap dishes the names of expensive ones, half as a joke and half as consolation: mock turtle soup from a calf's head, Scotch woodcock from egg and anchovy, poor man's goose from liver, onion and sage. What makes the substitution work is the seasoning rather than the meat, since sage and onion is the stuffing that traditionally goes into a roast goose, and apple sauce is its usual accompaniment; put those two flavours on the plate and the association follows. Liver was among the cheapest butcher's items, and offal recipes of this kind were staple household economy in Britain. The claim that liver is as nourishing as goose is, for once, fair comment: it is exceptionally rich in iron and vitamin A.