Properly prepared, liver has a sweet, nutty taste with an earthy iron flavor, and it pairs well with fruits. Pork is said to be closest to long pig, but I use chicken because it has a softer taste and, mostly, I don’t eat pork.
Ice Cream
- @ 2/3 cup de-grossed chicken liver Bunch of milk 3-4 cups strawberries
- 1/2 cup sugar 2 tbs honey 1 tsp lemon juice
- 1 cup of sweet red wine, such as a Syrah, Merlot, or Malbec Some butter
- 1/2 cup half & half 1 pint heavy whipping cream
De-gross liver by removing the veins and gristle, rinsing it under cold water, patting dry, and then soaking it in a bowl of milk for 30-60 minutes to remove bitterness (the liver’s, not yours).
Set aside half the number of whole strawberries as you have ice cream molds. For the rest, remove their green sepals and chop the fruit into chunks. In a large bowl, mix honey, sugar, and lemon juice, add the chopped strawberries, and toss thoroughly. Let sit for 15 minutes. Drain, but keep the runoff, and set aside 1/3 of the chunk mix. Purée the rest and pour back into the bowl.
Drain and rinse the milked liver. Heat butter in a pan and lightly brown the liver on all sides. Cook to medium rare (Undercooking is bad health-wise; overcooking leads to that sharp taste people dislike. Because liver will be puréed anyway, cut the pieces in half at the thickest point to check if pink—not red or bloody—and return to pan if not done). Remember that the liver will continue cooking when removed from heat.
In a pot, reduce the wine by half.
Put half & half into a blender, add the liver, purée.
Begin stirring the liver mix into the puréed strawberries, one tablespoon at a time, to taste. The strawberries should dominate, but not hide the liver. Begin adding the reduced red wine, again to taste. Keep in mind that you will be adding strawberry chunks, and the whipping cream will dilute the mixture (My ratio is 2 cups strawberry purée, 1/2 cup liver purée, 1/2 cup wine). When you are happy, stir in the set-aside chunked strawberries and put in fridge to chill.
Whip the whipping cream until just firm, not stiff. Put in fridge. When both the cream and the liver mixtures are chilled, fold them together gently. Swirls will be more attractive than full blending, and will also knock less air from the whipping cream. Pour into flexible silicon molds and place in freezer.
If you have an ice cream maker, you can adjust the above to use that.
Hazelnut Shortbread
To accentuate the liver’s nutty flavor and add a different texture, make bases of hazelnut shortbread. You will end up with extra cookies, but how is that a bad thing?
- 1 cup of raw hazelnuts 1 cup unsalted butter with a high fat content
- 2/3 cup light brown sugar 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups of all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon of salt
Preheat oven to 350°F and bake the hazelnuts until they brown, their skins start to peel, and you can smell them (@15 minutes). Put them on a wire rack and cover with a towel for 15 minutes. Remove skins. Chop half of them finely and then blitz the rest into powder.
In a bowl, beat butter and sugar until they are one. Then add the vanilla and beat that. Separately, whisk hazelnuts, both powdered and chopped, with the salt and flour, add those to the buttery sugar mix, and beat yet again (you monster).
Divide dough in half, and, sandwiched between sheets of parchment paper, roll out one portion at a time to a thickness of 1/4 inch.
Chill dough for an hour in the fridge or for 20 minutes in the freezer (you may need to reposition your ex-roommate’s head).
Remove top parchment papers from the dough and cut out discs with a circular cookie cutter the same circumference as the ice cream mold bases. Place cookies on parchment-lined baking sheets at least 2 inches apart. Bake the cookies for 13 minutes. A deep golden brown is what you are looking for. Cool them on a wire rack.
Re-roll and chill the leftover dough scraps, and then cut out more cookies. Repeat.
Assemblage
Remove ice cream from freezer, let sit for 5-10 minutes to soften. Meanwhile, cut the reserved whole strawberries in halve lengthwise. On both sides of each tapered end, cut out wedges to form talons. Place ice cream on top of each shortbread disk, and add a strawberry claw for garnish, either on top for flat-top molds, or on the plate for round ones.
Strawberry Bleed
- Strawberry mix runoff
- Cachaça
- Lime juice
Into the runoff from the strawberry-honey-lime-sugar mix (you did keep that like I told you, right? Right?), add cachaça (it has a rum-like flavor) to taste, then add lime juice to cut the horrific sweetness. If you have leftover strawberry purée, add that if you wish. As you sip, remember that strawberries are rich in antioxidants and good for your liver. Savor the irony.