Chopped Liver

When I was in college, I was invited to a Jewish friend’s home for dinner.  His mother had made chopped liver for an appetizer.  It was a revelation – I had to tear myself away to save room for dinner.  I’ve been thinking of trying to recreate it for nearly 30 years and thanks to the Chicken & Dumplings I made recently, I actually had some schmaltz (rendered chicken fat) in the refrigerator!  I’m so glad I saved it.  I found what sounded like a good recipe from Ina Garten (Chopped Liver) on foodnetwork.

 

Schmaltz, onions, trimmed chicken livers.

 

Madeira and thyme.

 

Sautéing the livers in chicken fat!

 

The livers with the onions sautéed in chicken fat!

 

Added the Kosher salt, pepper, cayenne, and 4 hard-cooked organic free-range eggs (plus – not shown – more chicken fat!).  I wish I’d had the proper bowl and chopper to coarse chop the mixture as it’s hard not to over-do it in the food processor.

 

I wanted to give the chopped liver every chance to live up to my memory of it so I made some seeded rye bread (from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day) to serve it on.

 

Free-form loaf.

 

And Dutch Oven-method boule in the oven after 15 minutes with the lid on to steam.

 

Cooling.

 

I love the smell of caraway seeds.

 

It was every bit as good as I remembered. Yes, with all that cholesterol, it may be “artery putty”; but as a very rare treat I think it’s worth it.

Easy Hamburger Buns | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Since my husband was making some lovely pulled pork to make barbequed pork sandwiches, I was happy that I had some Buttermilk White Bread mix from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day already mixed in the refrigerator.

 

This is the mix in the bucket.

 

I had a hamburger pan from earlier experiments. Sometimes it is good to hang on to baking pans you never thought you’d use again.

 

I love the “shooting through glass” option on my camera.

 

The pulled pork with barbeque sauce, homemade mayonnaise, homemade buns, beans from our garden, and fried potatoes.

BLT Challenge Entry | Best Photograph

Close-up of the crumb structure of the “ciapita”, The First Bread.

It looks to me like an alien landscape. My husband said the same thing when he saw it.

BLT Challenge | The Second Bread

 

After mixing the biga for The First Bread (previous post), I decided to try a batch of The Master Recipe:  Boule from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Fancois. My husband and I have been going through a lot of baguettes to eat with my pesto. I find most supermarket “French Bread” barely tolerable and wanted to start making my own on a regular basis. The Acme’s Rustic Baguettes from Artisan Baking turned out as I’d hoped, but I wanted to try a less labor-intensive method.

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When The First Bread emerged as a ciapita, I followed the instructions for making ciabatta from The Master Recipe dough I had stored in the refrigerator.

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This is more like what I expected, though I wish I hadn’t been afraid to thin it a bit more before baking.

BLT Challenge | The First Bread

Since I made my bacon with a pancetta cure, I decided to give my BLT an Italian motif. The first bread I chose to make was Craig Ponsford’s ciabatta from Artisan Baking by Maggie Glezer. I had recently purchased the book and wanted to try the technique. It wasn’t until I searched on the internet for help after my seeming disaster (which I’ll show you a bit later), that I found out that it is many baker’s favorite ciabatta recipe.

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The day before you are ready to mix the final dough, you make the biga (pre-ferment of flour, water, and yeast) and let it ferment for 24 hours.

This biga is made from unbleached bread, unbleached all-purpose, whole-wheat, and whole-rye flours with water and a tiny bit of yeast.

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Here’s the dough fermenting under plastic wrap.

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During the beginning of fermentation, the dough is turned every 20 minutes. By this point at the end of fermentation it should be a bit stiffer. Unfortunately, a thunderstorm came up in the middle of the fermentation and I didn’t feel confident enough to add much flour at this point.

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I was afraid to proof the loaves in a couche or tea towel, no matter how heavily floured; so I used floured plastic wrap. I had read when forming ciabatta not to make it less that 3/4” thick or it might puff like a pita. This dough was so very slack, I didn’t flatten it at all. It flowed to this form. Ah well, I’d gone this far; might as well bake it.

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There was no chance the gloppy loaves would slide off a peel. I used a wide spatula and hope to flip them onto parchment paper. I was feeling a bit better…this didn’t look so bad.

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Um, this looks awfully puffy.

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Oh, NO! It’s a ciapita!

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I had a rye Old-Fashioned. I felt a bit better about the whole thing.

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It looks good like this. Maybe people will just think I’m petting the lovely ciabatta, not shoving the ciapita monster's snaggle-toothed jaws shut.

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It was really good dipped in pesto made from the basil in my garden. The holes in the crumb hold nice, big globs of it.

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