Texas Sandwich
Chop one-half pound of broiled calf's liver fine.
Season with salt and cayenne pepper, add on teaspoonful of melted butter and a few drops of onion juice; rub together to a smooth paste. Spread on thin slices of unbuttered white bread. Cover with another slice.
A liver pâté in sandwich form, from the era when potted meats were the standard filling. The whole dish hinges on not overcooking the liver.
- Don't overcook the liverCalf's liver turns grainy and bitter the moment it goes past pink in the centre. Broil or pan-sear slices about half an inch thick for 2 to 3 minutes a side, until just firm and rosy inside, then let them cool before chopping.
- "Broiled" hereIn American cookbooks of this period broiling meant cooking over or under direct heat, closest to a modern grill or overhead broiler. A hot cast-iron pan gives the same result and less mess.
- The typo"On teaspoonful" is one teaspoonful. That is barely enough fat to bind half a pound of liver, so expect a stiff paste; a second teaspoon of softened butter, or a spoonful of cream, loosens it without changing the character.
- Onion juiceGrate a piece of onion on a fine grater and press the pulp in a sieve, or grate it straight into a bowl and take the liquid. A few drops is genuinely a few drops -- onion juice is aggressive, and more of it will read as raw onion rather than seasoning.
- CayenneStart with a pinch, under an eighth of a teaspoon, and taste. Cold liver paste tastes flatter than warm, so season it slightly higher than seems right while it is at room temperature.
- Chopping to a paste"Chop fine, then rub together" describes a knife and the back of a spoon against a bowl. A food processor does it in seconds, but pulse rather than run it, or the paste turns pasty and gluey.
- Unbuttered breadThe recipe specifies unbuttered bread, and the butter is already in the filling. Use a close-crumbed white sandwich loaf sliced thin.
- Yield and keepingHalf a pound of liver makes roughly a cup of paste, enough for about four to six sandwiches with crusts trimmed. Keep the paste covered and refrigerated and use it within a day or two; press plastic wrap onto the surface, as liver darkens quickly in air.
Liver sandwiches appear in early twentieth-century sandwich books, which drew on the older tradition of potted and deviled meats -- cooked meat pounded with butter and spice into a spreadable paste. Calf's liver was generally regarded as the finer choice, milder and finer-grained than beef or pork liver. Why this one is called a Texas sandwich is anyone's guess; the sandwich books of the 1900s and 1910s often attached place names to fillings for no evident reason. The genre belongs to the fashion for afternoon tea, luncheon parties and packed lunches, all of which demanded fillings that spread neatly and did not leak through bread.