What Am I, Chopped Liver?

It's funny how as I've gotten older, my goals in life have changed. I can clearly remember being a teenager and having incredibly specific goals for my future. I not only had certain accomplishments set, but I had an exact timeline for when they would happen. As time has passed and I've grown older, more than just my goals has changed. I now focus less on specific accomplishments or when they happen. I can truly say that my main goal for my future is just to be happy. I don't know exactly what that means, but then again, I don't think most of us ever really know what we want or why we want it, or if we'll want it once we get it. After all, if the very specific goals of my youth had never evolved, I'd be married with two kids right now. Yikes.

I got to thinking about all this as I made yesterday's dinner. Despite my very vague current life goal of "happiness", I must admit that I have always had one everlasting 'life's mission', and that is to make people love foods with a bad reputation. With the possible exception of the much maligned anchovy, I think that no ingredient is looked upon with as much contempt as liver. I don't know if it's possible to make up for decades of overcooked liver and onions, but I certainly wish to try. The truth of the matter is that I love liver of all kinds--duck, calf, and chicken--I enjoy them all in a number of forms. Liver gets a bad rap for numerous unfair reasons. First of all, nothing is worse than overcooked liver. Nothing. Seriously. So if you've ever tried liver and it was overcooked, I urge you to try it again when it's nice and pink in the middle. Second of all, it doesn't sound very appealing. It is however, ridiculously good for you, especially if you're low in iron like myself.

In honor of the upcoming Passover holiday (I'm not Jewish, so please feel free to correct anything I say that may be incorrect), I decided to make one of my favorite treats that I always make this time of year--chopped liver. Chopped liver is traditionally chicken liver with onions, cooked in schmaltz (chicken fat) and mixed with hard boiled egg. I've made half a dozen permutations of the traditional, basic recipe, and never found it entirely fulfilling. So, for the last few years I've spent a great deal of time perfecting a recipe that has a bit more sophistication and rounded out flavors while maintaining the authenticity of a traditional recipe to some degree.

For me, the answer came in the way of a few small tweaks. The first important change that I made was to really caramelize the onions until they were nice and crispy, instead of only cooking them until they start to brown (rendering them limp and flavorless). Secondly, I broiled the liver instead of cooking it in the pan with the onions. This way the onions stayed crisp and the water from the liver didn't muck up the dish. Lastly, I added a bit of vinegar to the mix for depth of flavor. Chopped liver always seemed to me to be begging for some kind of acid, and whether you use sherry, balsamic vinegar, or even brandy, it'll really pull everything together and cut the sweetness from the onions. And if you're feeling really fancy, you could always reduce some lovely balsamic vinegar to a thick glaze and drizzle it over each little liver topped cracker. So, did I manage to make chopped liver seem sexy and exciting? At all? Anyone?


Chopped Liver

1 lb chicken livers
6 Tbsp schmaltz (or a combo of olive oil and butter if you're squeamish)
2 cups thinly sliced onions (thin half moons are best)
3 hard boiled eggs, chopped
1/4 cup balsamic or sherry vinegar
salt
pepper

1. Preheat broiler. Broil livers on broiler rack 4 inches from the heat source for 3 minutes on each side. Remove from the oven, allow to cool a bit and finely chop livers. Set aside.

2. Melt schmaltz in a skillet and sauté onions over medium heat until caramelized and crunchy. Add chopped liver pieces and sauté 1 minute more. Add vinegar and remove from heat.

3. Pour contents of skillet into a mixing bowl and add egg. Mix everything together until well blended and season with salt and pepper to taste. Chill at least 3 hours in the refrigerator before serving. Serve with melba toast or toast points. Enjoy!

-Laura

Failure to Lunch

Well, it was bound to happen. I told myself I would blog about my triumphs AND my failures, and the time has come for the first publicized failure. Don't be fooled by my excellent (though amateurish) color correcting skills, the food in that photo was highly unappetizing. The truly unfortunate part is that I've made the recipe countless times, and happens to be one of my favorites that I can make with my eyes closed. But for some odd reason, this time I told myself I'd make it exactly as the recipe said. None of my shortcuts or substitutions, just straight-up, step by step direction following. What. A. Bad. Idea.

I'd been trying to make this French style liver dish all week to no avail, and finally I decided to make it and stick exactly to the recipe in the book. Naturally, I started out on course and soon veered and lost my way. I changed the onion part of the recipe (I made an onion confit instead of carmelized onions) but followed the recipe to the letter otherwise. That led to an overly sweet reduced sauce and overcooked chicken livers. And believe me, nothing in the world is worse than an overcooked liver of any kind. The salad wasn't bad, although I must admit...I veered there as well. What can I say, I'm not crazy about radishes. So...I replaced them with prosciutto. I know, it's shameful that I would avoid so many close encounters of the veggie kind, but it's just a phase. I'll move on to a new form of pork soon...I promise...*fingers crossed*.

I'm not quite sure what I've learned from this. Should I not try and stick to a recipe? Should I always stick to it? Or maybe, if I say I'm going to do something 100%, I shouldn't switch it up in the middle? Either way, it seems I've lost my appetite for this dish, so I suppose it'll be a while before I make it again. Too bad I still have half the container of liver left, perhaps this means I'll make some chopped liver? Who knows. Oh, and in case you're wondering, I did not eat the lousy dish. I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich :)

-Laura