Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Food: Liver and bacon

This is what we usually do with liver. Melt lots of butter in a fryingpan (You choose how much!). Finely chop an onion or two. Turn the heat down low and allow the onion to cook slowly until it's just brown around the edges and tastes of sugar. Chop up a piece of streaky bacon per person and fry this in the middle of the onion, usually I've scraped the onion to the edges of the fryingpan at this stage. Pull the cooked bacon in to a heap with the onions at the edge of the pan and fry the liver in the space they leave. I like lamb's liver. Turn it about twice so its nicely browned on the outside. We like it cooked through so I then mix the whole lot together, cover with it over with the lid from the stockpot and let it cook on a very low heat for about another 5 minutes. Dish it up and eat. Pepper is nice somewhere along the way but for me there is enough salt in the bacon.

I don't really do sophisticated cooking!

Peter

10 comments:

paul said...

A perfect meal. I am eating it this evening in fact. As you describe except it's veal liver and I shred some green leaves (kale or collard greens or whatever) and throw them in at the end just enough to coat them with the cooking juice. I think of the greens as being a great addition for some B vitamins, but I must admit that I am no longer feeling on such steady ground after reading some of the blog's 'fruit and vegetable' discussions...

.^ said...

Sounds good, I'll give it a try. I suppose strong onion and strong bacon smells and tastes wrestle the liver aroma into submission.

Peter said...

Hi Paul,

No stress. I grow curly kale and it's just starting to take off, having done nothing all winter. Peter hangs head in shame. I also grow spinach...

Peter

JohnN said...

Chainey,
Liver strong aroma and most of the bitterness (if you can taste it) can be tamed by soaking in citrus juice for 1 hr or so. Chicken liver is perfect as is to me.

.^ said...

Taking the liver out of the freezer I see it's "ox liver", but I suspect an ox is just a a type of cow/bull.

I'll try half in the lemon juice and half with the onions/bacon, and let you know how it goes.

Peter said...

Hi chainey,

'Fraid ox is probably the toughest! Lamb's or chicken are my first choices. Prob pork then ox...

Peter

Unknown said...

liver and bacon casserole in the slow cooker:
equal amounts of each (I use 1lb of each to bulk cook lots of portions at once)
liver,
bacon,
chopped lambs heart,

plus
lamb stock to cover (or just throw in a few frozen lamb chops or lamb bones)
2 diced onions
diced head of celery
2 tins of tomatoes or passata or if you anti-tomato brigade want to replace it with stronger stock then that works too.
Black pepper to taste but don't put salt in because there is plenty in the bacon.
I also add a lump of lard to it

Then leave and stew in slow cooker all day and hey presto.

If you use canned toms then watery liquid works somehow. But for the gravy version with no toms I thicken it using lamb stock and a little gravy thickening (I always make sure it is the potato-starch thickening and just use a few grams).



Last week I also tried a beef and ox kidney stew. Cheap freezer shops do 1kg bags of assorted frozen casserole veggies (carrots, suede/turnip,onion,celery) so it's so lazy to get 3 of those, 2lb of shin beef and 1lb of ox kidney and shove it all in the slow cooker for 5-6 hours. (Then thicken with potatoe-starch gravy granules at the end).

Good job I have one of those extra-large oval slow cookers so at that rate I only have to cook once a week lol. I must admit though, the stew is a bit lean for me so I add a thick slice of butter to eat portion I have.

Olga said...

Hi Peter:
Just a cautionary note that liver consumption may provide too much vitamin A for some people. I was consuming liver once or twice per month for about 6 months and started feeling ill. It took me another 6 months to figure out that people who have familial hyperlipidemia have a tendency to overdose on levels of vit A that would be fine for most people. Here's are a few of the papers that finally gave me some answers:
http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/abstract/105/6/877

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/71/4/878#R25

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WKR-4M0CF8W-5&_user=4993546&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1047912424&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000051243&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=4993546&md5=a70d5575badc30f220ac1a82dec65026
Thanks for this great blog!

Peter said...

Thanks Olga,

I've put the links up as a main post so anyone in your situation is more likely to see it!

Peter

jon w said...

my personal favorite is pork liver...

I wonder about the other organ meats? Ok heart and tongue are probably like any muscle (?) but how's the nutrition in things like kidney, brain, lungs, pancreas, thymus, tripe and so on? Fish roe/milt? Testicles?