[Sca-cooks] Liver for Stefan

[Stefan li Rous]

Phlip replied to me with:
> --- Stefan li Rous <stefan at texas.net> wrote:
> > Thanks. This substitution may make sense. I think I can probably find
> > chicken livers sold in seperate packages at my grocery. I've got no
> > idea where I would find pig liver. Perhaps at a specialized butcher?
> > Has anyone tasted both chicken and pig livers? How different do they
> > taste?
>
> Liver, Stefan, can usually be found in almost any
> supermarket. Sometimes, you have to get there on
> certain days for it, because it's an organ meat, and
> doesn't keep very well, and for that reason sometimes
> you can only get it frozen, unless you set up an order
> with the supermarket meat dept ahead of time.

Okay. I did check when I was at the grocery this evening.
I did find beef liver, but not pig liver.

> Any supermarket in my experience, however, will
> provide you with fresh liver, whether pork, calf, cow,
> chicken, or even goose, if you tell them ahead of
> time. I've even been able to find lamb liver without
> too much trouble.

Ok.

> As far as liver goes, being an organ meat, in terms of
> flavor, IMO, liver is liver, without the
> differentiation so noticeable in the muscle meats.
> Where it is very different is in the veining, ie, the
> internal veins which run through the liver for the
> blood supply. Obviously, those of a chicken are much
> smaller, and unnoticeable, compared to those of a much
> larger animal such as a calf or a pig.

Okay,  this is the kind of info I was interested in. Thus
that cookbook author's substitution of chicken livers
for pig livers might not be that bad.

> If you want to taste and compare liver flavors, the
> easiest way is to get some liverwurst, which is made
> of pig liver, and compare it to a liverwurst you can
> make at home from chicken livers.

Well, not particularly. The questions were more of an
academic nature to me. I do question the use of the
liverwurst to be used to compare two different beast's
livers. Unless you knew they were spiced identically
with the same additional ingredients added, I think you'd
have to wonder if any taste differance was due to the
different animals or something else.

> Honestly, the important thing about various livers is
> not the flavor differences from species to species,
> but the freshness from day to day. A fresh liver from
> a freshly killed animal, unfrozen, is the absolute
> best. Any delay in cooking or freezing has an
> unfortunate effect on it, in my opinion.

This make sense. But if the taste deteriorates that
fast, how can you use it in a sausage, haggis or
liverwurst which are generally done for longtime
storage?

--
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
   Mark S. Harris            Austin, Texas          stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****