Fried Liver (Oh Yes, I did…)

My kiddos are really good eaters. I know I’m fortunate. But really, I never expected to get away with this meal. I had two boxes of mac and cheese on stand-by in case of revolt.

First, an explanation. I know that liver is really, really good for you (don’t we all?), but I’ve never eaten it, and I’ve never wanted to eat it. I probably never would have…if we hadn’t bought our family a quarter of a cow last fall. Buying our beef this way gave us lots of local, organic meat in the freezer for a pretty low price. It also gave us a wide variety of cuts, many of which I’ve never cooked with before. Enter the liver. We can’t really afford to throw away perfectly good meat. So I stared at it for a few months, I stewed about what to do with it. The liver in the freezer occupied this little section of my brain designated as “Uncomfortable Things I Must Deal with at Some Point”

So while flipping through the More with Less cookbook, I noticed a little recipe titled “Our Children Love Liver”. I was intrigued. I tried it out. What do you know? My children loved liver. Well, except for the Sweet Pea, who commented “It tastes too much like cow”. Fair enough. She held her nose and swallowed the two pieces in her bowl, then filled up on salad.

A few preparation notes: I just don’t have the patience to individually place small sticks of liver into a frying pan and turn them one at a time. Sorry. I fried my liver in two batches, throwing a handful at a time into the skillet and kind of stir-frying it until it was nice and brown. This technique worked just fine for me.

Also you don’t really need the bacon here–especially if you’re watching your cholesterol–but it certainly made my kiddos more excited about eating liver. Serving it with generous helpings of bland mashed potatoes was also a good move. It helped to off-set the strong liver flavor. And we allowed them the use of ketchup–as much as they wanted.

Surprisingly, they even ate the leftovers–wrapped up into burritos with black beans and rice was pretty popular.

The verdict? I’m happy to have this recipe in my files–for the next time a cut of liver lands in my freezer. And I’m happy to know that my kiddos will not starve if we ever end up on a desert island…with a few cows and their livers.

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