The matriarch of our Friday night crew celebrated her 93rd birthday this weekend. This is a big deal, and rightly so. Family members flew in from Ohio and Maryland, including her first great-grandchild. I was assigned an appetizer, so I made chopped chicken liver. This is my first foray into making chopped liver, although we’ve had it from Whole Foods in the past at Passover and Rosh Hashanah. As I’ve mentioned before, one of our friends has an intolerance to onions, garlic, and other alliums. This required some serious adjustment, since most chopped liver recipes contain lots of onion.
My base recipe was from Joan Nathan’s Jewish Cooking in America. Jewish dietary law forbids consumption of blood, so most chopped liver recipes require the cook to broil the livers on a rack to get rid of the blood. This one didn’t, for some reason (must be a Reform recipe). I chopped up some green bell pepper, celery, and cremini mushrooms for the onion-free bowl. I left out the mushrooms for the onion-full bowl. Both bowls also had fresh thyme from my plant, salt, pepper, and hard-boiled eggs. After the vegetables are sautéed, you add the livers to the pan and cook them until they’re not bleeding. Once the livers were done, I deglazed the pan with a little sherry vinegar. Then the livers and vegetables go into a food processor with the hard-boiled eggs. Just pulse a few times so the mixture remains a little chunky. Add salt and pepper to taste and chill. I cooked and processed the onion-free recipe first, so I wouldn’t cross-contaminate it with onions.
Both recipes were hits. The onion-free recipe needed a little more salt to our palate, but the onion-full bowl was very well-received, especially by the guest of honor. I daresay this success means I’ll be called on to repeat this recipe at the next mixed-household Seder.
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