SC - Organ Meats

[Philip & Susan Troy]

THLRenata at aol.com wrote:

> While perusing my brand-new copy of The Medieval Kitchen I noticed a number of
> recipes where the sauce was thickened with liver.
> 
> Has anyone tried this? How pervasive is the liver flavor? (Other organ meats
> are great, but I just don't like liver.) Is there any way to omit the liver
> and still get a reasonable result?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and answer what I anticipate your
next couple of questoins will be. I do this not out of disrespect, but
because I've looked into this a good deal and I have sort of followed a
specific logical path and come to a definite conclusion about this whole
liver-thickened sauce thing.

Now that you're really confused...here's the situation as I see it.
Others' mileage may vary. Sauces thickened with liver tend to involve
livers (poultry, rabbit or hare, usually but not always raw) pureed in a
fine hair sieve, and added to thicken the sauce with the warning that
the sauce should be heated until thick but not boiled. This would seem
to me to make them a close relative of similar recipes for chawdoun and
various civies ancient and modern, thickened with blood.

Obviously the less liver you use, the less like liver the dish will
taste. You could use blood, which would then make the dish taste like
blood, which some people don't mind and others would rather die than
eat. It's your call. In general, blood tastes rich and slightly gamy 
but without the trace sweet bitterness of liver.

Now, as a substitute for livers and/or blood, sources like Taillevent
would recommend toast slowly roasted on a gridiron until deep, deep
mahagony brown, but not burnt black (the rack on a 250-300 degree oven
works great for this), crumbled and steeped in vinegar and/or verjuice
until soft enough to push through a sieve. Red wine vinegar helps with
the color illusion. It really isn't the same, but it seems to have been
done when livers were not available for one reason or another.

Still, you might experiment and possibly find that you can make a nice,
rich, velvety sauce that doesn't just taste much like liver at all, if
you don't overdo it on the liver puree. Just as a benchmark, liverwurst
is much milder than pure liver because it's maybe a third liver and two
thirds fat and muscle meat. You may find that a sauce thickened with
liver might take less still to do the job, and Not Offend. I have no
statistics available on this, but generally it's a good idea to have
some firsthand experience with something like this before abandoning it.
You will probably live a richer life as a result.

After that, of course, you always have the option of the dark toast ; 
).

Adamantius  
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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