Best Liver Recipes

This simple salad is tossed with a hot dressing, made from the caramelized bits left in the pan after sautéing the livers, which slightly wilts the greens and adds additional duck flavor. - Valaer MurrayFrom Anita Lo of AnnisaClick here to see the post Cooking Class with Chef Anita Lo

Calf’s liver with onions or bacon, or both, was once a popular dish in American restaurants—though it seems to have pretty much disappeared in recent years—and liver with just the onions appears in numerous traditional cuisines (Italy’s fegato alla veneziana, Catalonia’s fetge amb ceba, the higado encebollado of Columbia and Peru, etc.). In England, bacon has long been the main accompaniment, with onions playing a minor role, if present at all. Perhaps the first mention of the dish by an Englishman comes courtesy of one William Wreathcock, an attorney of dubious moral character, who when accused of robbing a clergyman in 1735, offered as his alibi that on the evening of the crime, he had been dining with his clerk and a client at Symond’s Inn on liver and bacon—no mention of onions—until the early hours of the morning. Onions aren’t present, either, in Mrs. Beeton’s recipe for calf’s liver and bacon from 1861. Today, calf’s or lamb’s liver is often served with both accoutrements. I got this recipe in 1998, for an article I was writing for Saveur about London’s Smithfield Market and the surrounding blocks. It comes from The Sirloin, the restaurant portion of the Victorian-era pub called The Hope.Recipe courtesy of cookbook The British Table: A New Look at the Traditional Cooking of England, Scotland, and Wales by Colman Andrews. Click here to purchase your own copy. 

From the blog http://chatteringkitchen.com December brings with it cold winds, hot fireplaces and the spirit of festivities. Kitchens are fired up to prepare for families and friends, houses are filled with people enjoying the holidays and everyone comes together to share each others joy. What better way to bring a smile on people's faces than through good food. While most tend to concentrate on large lunches and dinners, some shift focus towards canapes and cocktails. Short on time but still want to have people over to rejoice Christmas or simply the holidays, then invite them over for cocktails in the evening or after dinner. Hors de ouevres can be quickly whipped up to excite the palate of your epicure guests. One such December favorite of mine is Liver Pate, a classy and full bodied antipasti, served with melba toasts. Having been a specialty of my mothers', I can still remember the smell that would emanate from the kitchen each time that she would make it. Even though she would not cater professionally, but her famous Liver Pate was ordered by many of her friends for their dinner parties. Famous throughout French and Belgian cuisine, Liver Pate can be made with Goose Liver (Foie Gras), Duck Liver, Pork Liver or Chicken Liver. Since my mother used Chicken Liver most of the time, I adopted her recipe, albeit with a twist - cranberry sauce. A combination that is perfect to serve during the holiday and Christmas season.

Chef R.J. Cooper at Rogue 24 makes a rich and aromatic bourbon-brown butter pound cake to serve with his chicken liver parfait. 

A bruschetta (brew-SKET-ta) is one of many variations of toasted bread, olive oil, and garlic from Italy and it is justly popular all over the world. Meant to be eaten as a dish in itself, today a bruschetta is often served with a topping, though then it’s technically a crostino (literally "little crust"). The traditional Roman way of preparing a bruschetta is to cook the bread in oil to toast it, while the Tuscan fett’unta ("anointed" slice) is toasted first, then drizzled with warmed olive oil, not only a little lighter but less work. And I’ve included a version of Italian-American garlic bread that won’t make you expire from garlic poisoning.