Here’s the recipe that I used this weekend! If you’d like to read about my adventure in cooking liver for the first time please go here.
Tips for making Offal good beef liver:
- I used frozen calves liver that had been cut pretty thin… about 1/2 inch or less. I removed the membrane that is on the sides of the liver, and then soaked it in the juice from two lemons. I only soaked the liver for a couple hours, but I turned it over once during that time. Next time I will try to soak it longer. Sally says that the soaking draws out impurities and also makes the liver a bit more mild tasting.
- Do not cook the liver very long, especially if it’s cut on the thin side. It’s similar to cooking fish. Liver should be served rare, so cook it in a medium high heat pan just enough to brown both sides. Overcooked liver is tough. I only cooked mine 1-2 minutes per side.
- This is a simple and quick recipe. The thing that takes the longest is the onions, but it’s worth it to get the onions golden brown and carmelized, they are so yummy!
- I used grass fed beef liver, but I guess calves liver is not as strong and would be worth seeking out.
Liver & Onions
Rating: 1 fork (key)
No one else would taste it! It’s ok, there will be more liver opportunities…
Difficulty:
Easy to medium
Page in NT: 307
Ingredients:
1 1/2 pounds sliced liver
juice of 2-3 lemons
1 cup unbleached flour (for gluten free: use Pamela’s baking mix or rice flour)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
4 T clarified butter, ghee or lard (use butter if you don’t want to make clarified)
1 large onion, thinly sliced
2 T butter
2 T olive oil
Marinate liver slices in lemon juice for several hours or overnight.
In a heavy saute pan, melt the 2 T of butter and 2 T of olive oil and add the thinly sliced onions. Saute over medium heat for about 1/2 hour or until golden brown.
When the onions are nearly done: Pat the liver slices dry and dredge in a mixture of flour, salt and pepper. In a heavy skillet and over a high flame, saute the slices, two at a time, in clarified butter or lard. Transfer to a heated platter and keep warm in the oven.
Serve liver with the onions, a fermented vegetable such as ginger carrots or sauerkraut, and homemade fermented ketchup.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
I used to love liver and onions! Even overcooked, tough as shoe leather liver like my mom cooked. I have made liver once during my 25-year marriage, and my husband strongly recommended that I not make it again. Even the smell of it cooking made him queasy.
I have ground liver and hid it (1/4 pound liver to 2 pounds ground beef) in meatloaf, but how I long for a slice, quickly pan fried and covered in onions!
We didn’t eat liver for many years and have been trying to eat it once a week for the last year or two. If beef liver is too strong , lamb and pork liver is much more mild flavored, and pork liver has a firmer texture than beef liver. My aunt used to make liver and poured some heavy cream over the liver and onions after it was done until all was heated, the cream made a delicious sauce with the liver. We are fortunate to have a farm and sell lamb, beef, and pork, most folks do not want the livers so we get plenty . I also remember my mother and grandmother serving liver once a week, and I find that I have a lot of energy the next day after eating liver, I can’t help but think about how many folks I know who are vitamin B-12 deficient and take an expensive supplement…. maybe mom and grandma were right
Cindy… thanks for your suggestion on the pork liver, I think I have a good source locally here! I need to talk to Rosemont Century Farm and see if I can get a fresh pork liver from them. I know what you mean about the energy level!! The same day and the next day I had much more energy, it was great.
Hi – love the blog and we do have a copy of NT which I would like to get the courage to delve into.
Your blog will help a lot with that!
Re this recipe, I wanted to ask about using chicken livers instead of beef liver. My husband is VERY OPPOSED to eating liver at this point (disliked beef liver as a kid), but I grew up with my mom making fried chicken livers from time to time and we liked them (she used onions too but my brothers and I picked every icky slimy sliver of onion off our liver
). I miss chicken livers and would enjoy having them now and then, and I am hoping that chicken livers might be much less unappealing to our 5 year old (not sure about hubby though). She did try a bite of roasted turkey liver once (I cooked and ate it at Thanksgiving while the turkey cooked, yum) and didn’t like the chalky-like texture, but maybe if I cook the chicken livers differently she’ll like them.
About the onion – since we dislike onion (the texture mostly but partly the flavor if it gets very strong) can onion powder or onion flakes be subbed and still get a good result? We LOVE garlic and I plan to use that anyway because around here any meat or fish dish MUST include some garlic in some form, LOL!
Any thoughts or suggestions? I’ll eagerly await your response!
Yum!
~Sandra
Hi Sandra… there is a great but simple recipe in NT for chicken livers, I think pretty similar to the beef liver recipe. I think that pan fried with a sauce, or deep fried (in coconut oil) is a good ‘intro’ to the livers. I think onion powder would be fine too. Sounds really good, what time is dinner? haha. Let us know how it goes!! I hope to be making chicken livers soon too, but I’m not sure if I will be able to get my family to eat them.
You could use cooked spaghetti squash to get a similar effect, or mix it up with some cabbage cooked in butter.
Sorry everyone is having trouble liking the liver! I hated it too as a child. My husband felt the same. I cooked up NT’s Liver and Onions on p. 307, using grass-fed beef liver, frozen, from our food co-op. We approached our plates carefully, and loved it! I decided we would have it weekly, for health reasons (those good Vitamins). Tried NT’s Breaded Liver the next week, not so good. My husband asked for the first recipe to be repeated which I did a week later, using frozen lamb liver. Also delicious! So Tuesday night is Liver night now and we both look forward to it. Keep the recipes coming!
Kim–the liver and onions rates 4.5 forks on my scale…had it been just a bit pinker I would have rated it 5 forks…carmelized onions are in a whole realm of their own. As far as I’m concerned, carmelized onions are not and add-on or condiment…I could make an entire meal of carmelized onions with only a small amount of salt and pepper.
Keep the ‘by-products’ coming down the stairs!
BK
PS I use Mary’s Marvelous Mixture oil (NT p.150) to cook the liver. Onions are thin sliced (2mm blade) in food processor and cooked in olive oil or Mary’s. The thinner sliced onions taste different from hand chopped, maybe they caramelize better?
I love liver, but I’m the only one in this family! I was curious as to why you flour your liver before cooking? It will brown up fine on it’s own…and then there’s no pasty flour clogging things up!
We (my birth family…the ones I live with won’t touch it!) make a recipe with the leftovers we call liver salad: Chop up leftover liver, add carmelized onions and mushrooms (I almost always saute mushrooms up when I am making liver and onions), sunflower seeds, chopped boiled egg, and mayo. Stir together and serve with crackers, on bread, over lettuce, or just plain, the same way you might eat chicken salad. Yum!