/ck/ - Food & Cooking

>>15890769
A good starting point is mild chicken liver, in fact.
Saute and whirl up a batch deli-style jewish "chopped liver" and enjoy with Triscuits, which is my favorite. The deli spread is sweetened by sweet sauteed onions, and blended with hard boiled egg, and this buttery tasting spread is very mild but not straight liver.
Liver pate, wuch as enjoyed in an old french molded style is also blended with poached chicken, various nuts and pickles and molded to be steamed or bain marie to cook together. This features brandy flavoring. Further reduce the strength of liver flavor by enjoying a slice in the bottom of a bahn mi lemongrass chicken sub where the fresh herbs, fresh cucumber and picked veggies is just enhanced by the minerally chicken liver flavor.
Go to a restaurant like Cracker Barrel and for low risk enjoyment of deep fried chicken livers, choose it as the main on a sampler platter that gives you 4 luscious southern veggies to enjoy whould you not like the liver itself.
Preparing the chicken itself can involve a soak in milk, which is said to pull out some of the blood from the tissue and maybe therefore some of the blood flavor, can make it mild. Remove the connective tendon between the lobes helps the texture.
The original duxelles that is the mushroom paste we use today under a beef wellington wrapper WAS a liver paste. Go old school and make some mini wellingtons and revert to maybe half liver/half mushrooms. It will flavor the filet nicely, but be very thin and softened by the pastry in each bite as well.

>>15782348

>>15621745
The answer is chicken livers as the absolute youngest and and mildest livers. That's how you get your feet wet and where you start until you like the mineral-y blood flavor.

Also, you should just nom nom on it with a fork and plain until you know you love it. Start where it's blended in pate or other ingredients, where you can taste the brandy, the sweet onions, and the butter.

Chopped liver , along the lines of jewish deli style chopped liver spread has a bit of minced hard boiled egg, barely cooked livers in butter or schmalz sweated sweet onions, and pulsed in processing til creamy with a bit of salt, pepper. The flavorful cracker will be half of your enjoyment. It's not vastly different to add some more French elements of brandy and some other herbs and veg.

Pork liver dumplings, slow simmered in Austrian rich and herbal simple broth is comfy. It's half bread in the dumpling, hearty dense crusty and flavorful breads incl rye, lots of parsley, marjoram, lemon zest, bound by milk and egg. Leberknodelsuppe is best made by a video of the technique, not just a written recipe. They freeze well if you want to try a batch for the random mood.

If you really do want to saute livers, try some veal liver, again the younger the liver, the better, and slice it thinly, barely cook it in butter with lots of sweet onions in butter, bit of an herb, deglaze with a favorite alcohol, from vermouth to madeira to brandy, whatever you have. Burned liver can taste bitter, you see. This can be a fork and knife enjoyed dinner, but you'll also some amazing sides, maybe something acidic to cut the fat and also creamy mashed potatoes. People will often alternate bites, or combine items on their fork. Onion with each bite of liver.

Soak cleaned chicken liver lobes in buttermilk (remove connective tissue). Dredge in seasoned cornmeal and flour, and shallow pan fry in a cast iron, til crispy laced edged. Enjoy with nice comfy vegetable selection

>>13813239
Expensive slabs of cured salmon, and tubes of braunschweiger, as well as Garcia brand smoked sausages were plenty available yesterday at the Aldi while the entire fresh meat selection was wiped out clean (wtf?). They had the frozen Easter hams just arrived, but alas, my fridge and freezer couldn't accommodate that massive of an item right now.
I'm sure I could make use of a tub of frozen chicken livers if I had looked hard at the usual grocery (which is usually not Aldi). It'll be awhile before I step foot in a store probably now.

>>13361730
>Do you eat organ meat?
I make chopped liver spread about twice a year. Hard boil an egg, shock to stop the cooking in cold water, meanwhile sweat onions in butter, gently cook the milk-soaked, patted dry, lobes of chicken livers (small tub 1/2lb) in the drippings, deglaze with a glog of cream or dry sherry, usually. Scrape all into the processor to cool, and once no longer steaming, process together with salt and pepper, and chill a couple hours to firm up. I can devour it within a couple of days. There's a sweetness, a mineraly flavor, and eggy and fatty richness. I prefer a rye triscuit, or those JJ Flats or other type of everything cracker.

Now to make this kosher you wouldn't be using butter rather instead you'd use schmalz (chicken fat), nor would you be soaking the livers in milk (which I feel is a good step). No alcohol, it's supposed to be simple, not a french pate, but I like that hint of something else there and think there are some alcohol soluble flavors. But I don't go traditional. It's just usually a last minute recipe to handle a sudden craving. Parsley on top if serving to others. Do not be tempted to use any kind of sweet onion nor caramelize them, just soften them up. You don't want it too sweet. You can italianize the recipe and making it like bruschetta topping, adding garlic, less processing, finished with a drizzle of balsamic glaze or raspberry white wine vinegar, or lemon zest.

I don't mind calves liver and if I see it on menus I might get it. And I think pork liver goes nicely into leberknudelsuppe "meatballs" but that's a real labor of love beginning to end. Only made it once.

>>12924640
Four way I adore liver. The rest, ehh, take it or leave it.

1) Jewish deli style chopped liver (spread). Trim gristle and connective tissue, and wash chicken livers, pat dry. To 1 diced onion sweated in butter (or chicken fat) on medium low heat, add liver lobes in batches until cooked through but not browned. Remove in batches to food processor. Whirl up with 1 chopped hard boiled egg, the pan drippings, salt, pepper. Get cold. Enjoy on crackers or on delicious bread.
2) Deep fried chicken livers, southern style. To a meal of really good fresh seasonal 2-4 veggies, this is a rich main to enjoy. Think succotash, sauteed mustard greens, baked sweet potato, and rich livers. Nice cornbread to finish it. Dredge soaked livers (buttermilk) in seasoned flour. Pan fry until golden all over and pierced flesh shows no pink.
3) Leberknodelsuppe Austrian liver meatball dumpling in soup. These freeze well, and will showcase a rich homemade broth on a cold winter night, warmed up. They freeze so well, you can find them in german butcher shops ready to stew. I recommend finding a youtube tutorial. To food processor, process veal or pork liver and add to bowl with binders of sauteed and blended onion, parsley, egg, coarse bread crumbs soaked in milk. Regional recipe differences add marjoram, parsley, lemon zest, minced carrot, bacon fat, and using bread that is from rolls that feature caraway, rye, sourdough, challah and so forth.
4) Big batch of dirty rice, your way. Just grind and add some liver in the ground meat, and there's a glorious fresh liver taste throughout.

>>12863766
>Anyone know how it compares to lamb liver? (which was too flavourful/strong for me)
Your picture may or may not be baby lamb vs full grown sheep.
The flavor thing is that baby animals have milder livers. So veal liver, calve's liver, not very strong adult beef liver is what people enjoy eating, and even then it's cooked softly in butter and lots of sweet slowly caramelized onions. It might have even been soaked in milk first, too, to draw out any lingering flavors of blood and metallic taste.

I think of all the liver I have had, there's nothing as yummy as fattened duck liver of course, in all recipes that use it, too. But, I actually adore chicken liver, with just the right amount of liver flavor, and it's quite young. Chickens have very short lives from birth to market. It's probably the cleanest, therefore, of any toxins, antibiotics, you know the things people are scared of.
Soak in milk, separate lobes, removing connecting gristle there, dredge in seasoned flour and pan fry til golden crispy, and enjoy with lots of southern sides like beans, greens, stewed tomatoes, corn, etc. It's the rich part of an otherwise healthy veggie platter. Best of all, saute in a little butter, with a single sweet onion, mash with a little hard boiled egg, and jewish deli style chopped liver spread is the quick pate of my choice. Spread on triscuits or everything crackers.

>>10642493
Chicken liver is great if you soak it in milk or buttermilk, snip away the connective tissue in the middles between the lobes, and dredge it seasoned flour or a mixture of cornmeal and flour and fry it. This is a Southern main, and great with typical country vegetable sides. It's pretty rich, I'd only expect no more than 4 pieces per person in a serving.

Chicken liver spread, aka jewish deli chopped liver, is even more delicious, and really quite easy. The only prep is hard boiling an egg. Saute diced onion until sweated and then barely golden, remove from pan, in butter drippings (or rendered chicken fat) cook livers until they lose their pinkness. Drop into processor with onions, and pulse coarsely. Add in hard boiled egg, season to taste with anything you want from wine to herbs. It's chicken liver pate without the fuss. It is delicious with everything or ritz crackers, rye crisps, triscuits, on a bagel. It is slightly sweet from the onions which balances the minerally flavor of the liver richness.