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Calf's Liver Fried
Slice the liver smoothly, and lay in salt and water to draw out the blood. Lard each slice, when you have wiped it dry, with slices of fat pork, drawn through at regular distances, and projecting slightly on each side. Lay in a clean frying pan and fry brown. When done, take out the slices, arrange them neatly on a hot dish and serve hot with the gravy in the frying-pan, pour over, or add to the gravy in the frying-pan a chopped onion, a half cupful of hot water, pepper, the juice of a lemon, and thicken with brown flour. Boil up well, run through a cullender to remove the onion and the bits of crisped pork that may have been broken off in cooking, pour over the liver, and serve hot.
A late-Victorian treatment of calf's liver that leans on two techniques now largely dropped: larding the slices with strips of fat pork, and thickening the pan gravy with browned flour. Both are worth keeping; the cooking time is the thing to revise.
- Do not fry it brown all the way throughCalf's liver is at its best cooked to a faint blush in the centre, which takes roughly two minutes a side over medium-high heat for a half-inch slice. "Fry brown" as written, in the heavy pans of the period, produced the grey, granular texture that gave liver its reputation.
- Slice thicknessThe original assumes the butcher's hand. Half an inch is the practical range; thinner slices overcook before they colour, thicker ones need a lower heat and will still firm up in the middle.
- SoakingSalted water for 30 minutes to an hour draws out blood and softens the mineral edge. Milk does the same job and is the more common modern choice. Either way, dry the slices thoroughly or they will steam rather than sear.
- LardingThreading strips of fat salt pork through the meat at intervals requires a larding needle, which most kitchens no longer own. The alternative is to render a few slices of fatty bacon or salt pork in the pan first, cook the liver in that fat, and crumble the crisped pork over at the end.
- Brown flourFlour toasted dry in a pan or a slow oven until it takes on a nut colour. It thickens less than raw flour, so use a little more, and it adds colour and a toasted note to the gravy. A tablespoon of ordinary flour cooked in the pan fat until it colours gives a similar result.
- CullenderA colander. The recipe strains out the onion and the loose scraps of pork to leave a smooth sauce; if you would rather keep the onion, skip the step and let the gravy stay rustic.
- Pan gravy proportionsHalf a cupful of hot water is thin for a sauce meant to coat. Stock rather than water, and a little more of it, gives a gravy with body once the flour goes in. Add the lemon juice off the heat so it stays bright.
- YieldNot stated. A pound of calf's liver, cut into four slices, serves three to four as a main course.
Calf's liver held a rank that ox and pig liver never did: milder, finer-grained, and priced accordingly, it was treated as a respectable dinner dish rather than an economy measure. The larding here is the older French technique of piercing lean meat with strips of fat, applied to a cut that has almost no fat of its own and dries out fast; the fat pork bastes from within as it renders. Browned flour was a staple thickener of the period, kept ready in a jar in many kitchens and called for whenever a dark gravy was wanted. The finishing touch of onion, lemon and pepper strained smooth reflects the general late-Victorian preference for a sauce that is sharp enough to cut richness but presented without visible solids.