Is that liver cooked dcarch? I've always seen cooked liver breaded and fried.

I love the colourful veggies and the sauce though.

The veggies don't look neon to me - could be the settings on our computers Teresa.

I have not had liver for a really long time. But I like it sliced, floured and fried with onions and bacon. My mother used to make it that way when I was a kid. One time my sister slipped her slice behind the sideboard in the kitchen. When my mother swept the next day she found it and knew who the culprit. My sister insisted it was me!

Up North Teresa

Boneless liver? Is there any other kind?:-)

I love chicken livers and fresh calves liver. Both should be cooked on the rare side.

Ann

We eat chicken liver every week. I make a pate out of it and this is our main thing we use on the bread my DH bakes. Chicken liver here is $.45 a pound. I cannot get even crappy lunch meat for anything close to that price. So yes, we do like liver in this house :)

Love liver! I remember it being sold fresh in little containers as a child, now the only time I see it, it is frozen. I'm sure I could find it fresh somewhere in town, but since I'm the only one in the house who would touch it, I don't try to find it. Liver and Onions with Mashed Potatoes and Peas--Classic childhood dish for me.

I occasionally cooked liver when I was married, until we learned how much cholesterol was in a small serving - 4 ounces of beef liver has about 400 mg of cholesterol (I was married to a cardiologist). Liver was never a favorite, so it wasn't hard to give up.

The only way I've had liver is carried in my mouth as dog show bait! The recipe? Boil liver forever, then smother with garlic salt and bake. It's a doggy dream food.

But "real" liver makes me think of my late mom, who loved liver and onions.

Sue

I love chicken livers....looks like you have cooked them with a few mushrooms? But what else is that? cucumber? red and yellow pepper or is that apple? It looks like it is served cold? That so? is that warm tomato sauce? or a cold salsa type of thing?
I agree with Teresa, I think you have taken your color correction one or perhaps 2 steps too far. The vegetables look artificial and in the 2nd picture even the bacon looks orange.
I'm not sure what it is....not sure if it would taste good. My mouth doesn't know what that would taste like...or perhaps my mind isn't telling my mouth what it would taste like.
But then you didn't ask for a critique of the picture, you just asked if we liked liver.
Yes I do....but I am not sure I would like your dish.
The picture is lovely as to color and design, but it doesn't whet my appetite for chicken liver.
Linda C

In many ancient cultures, liver was viewed as an almost magical source of strength. Despite its cholesterol figures, it has an abundance of nutrients. A pound of liver contains 362.9 mg of vitamin B12 vs. 8.2 mg for a pound of lean beef and 199,130 IU of vitamin A vs. 70 IU for the beef.

I really like liver, in spite of the fact that my mother always made the traditional liver with onions and/or bacon and cooked it until there wasn't a hint of pink left in the interior. I'd eat it but wasn't thrilled about it.

It wasn't until I began traveling to other countries and trying other preparations of liver that I discovered the flavor is very different when it is cooked to a lesser degree of doneness. To me, it's comparable to the difference between a medium rare and a well done steak.

We're lucky to live where we can get fresh liver sliced to order so I often make thick liver "steaks" on the grill or buy a chunk of whole calves' liver and stuff it.

Dcarch, your photos are interesting, as usual.

I like it smothered in grilled onions and bacon. My mother really liked liver so we had it often.

Welcome back, dcarch, way to ring in the new year!!!

We had a lot of liver when I was growing up, mostly from our own butchered animals, and because it was cheap-eats when we relied on meat from the store. I always chose the liver and gizzard when mom fried chicken.

I had a Home Economics teacher who hated it and in order to make edible would soak it in milk for a day before preparing it.

I still like it, but don't make it at home because hubby doesn't eat it. I'll get deep-fried chicken livers at the grocery store deli as an occasional treat for myself for lunch.

-Grainlady

I eat chicken livers once a year, as pate served with matzoh. And I love them that way. I have a visceral aversion (pun intended) to gnarled, whole chicken livers. Some foods just seem to be more presentable with a little cosmetic surgery.

As far as colors, the colors do seem off in the second picture. The plate, which I am assuming is white, has a purplish tint to it. Not sure if it is a result of the auto color correction feature. I tend to avoid using that with my photos as the outcome, while pretty, is pretty unnatural.

EEEEWWWWW.......GAG.....

(Does that answer your question?) LOL

Linda

Ditto to above....but I wish I did like it, it's so high in iron.

Pâté. With a nice baguette, some wine, brie, a friend and a picnic basket on Angel Island in the summer. Yes.

Big undisguised hunks. No.

From I source I don't remember, I learned of an Italian method for cooking calves liver which gives me good results. It is sliced thin, about half the thickness normally found in supermarkets, and fried quickly in olive oil. This is a seeming contradiction to the method given by Ruthanna and I don't know why it works because, by her sensible reasoning, it shouldn't. Maybe the brief cooking is what makes it good. Unfortunately, I can't get liver sliced to order and reslicing liver to a uniform thickness is tricky business.

Jim

EEEEWWWWW.......GAG.....
(Does that answer your question?) LOL

Linda

....I agree with Linda!

Duane

love love love it! Way too much cholesterol, but is absolutely my current comfort food. Not to mention that the liver is a filter that doesn't always let the offending substances leave the body. Be careful eating too much (disclaimer to myself).

All the different reactions are really interesting.
And I have always wondered why some always say you've "Photo shopped"
or altered the colors in your photos.
They don't appear that way on my monitor.
So maybe the "Up North Teresa" hit the nail on the head. She wrote that it could be the settings on the computers.

Anyway, I like liver.
Especially floured & fried crispy with bacon & onions.

Our kids seemed to like it
(Or I guess I should say "tolerate it")
If I added a bit of Creole Seasoning to the flour.

I also like nice tender-on-the-inside, crispy-on-the-outside deep fried chicken livers.

My Mother made what she called "Stewed Liver".
Floured & browned in bacon grease,
Then simmered very slowly and gently
in milk,
(For a very short time.)
Which thickened into a delicious gravy.

We butchered all our own beef, pork and fowl,
And she used everything (well, almost everything),
Even when the butchered animal was an older cow
Butchered because it quit producing milk.

I think I would enjoy your Liver Delivers meal, Dcarch.

Rusty

Whether photoshopped, camera settings or lighting, the colors on dcarch's photos are typically very bold and jump out at you. I like it and consider it part of his unique style. Others may object that it doesn't look natural. I agree that it doesn't, but I don't object to that. Regardless, I think it's very safe to say that those of us who notice dcarch's signature coloring use our computers to view countless other pictures both in this forum and all over web. I think by now we'd know if our display settings were off.

If you don't see what we're talking about, perhaps it's YOUR settings that are off. And that's a shame, because you're missing an important aspect of his artwork.

You make an excellent point FOAS.

DCarch's unique style and "colouring" have been mentioned often. I just assumed that DC was photoshopping his photos and that like Rusty's, maybe his settings were off as well.

Ann

Anyone even slightly serious about their photos uses some sort of photo editing software....whether Photoshop or another. You look at your picture and tweak the color a bit here and there perhaps sharpen the image, brighten a bit. But it's easy to brighten, say the yellow a bit too much and have it show places where you don't want yellow....so then perhaps you bring up the blue a bit which makes the yellow greenish and lends a bit of a blueish tint to white things.
It can get tricky.

First, thank you all, for your kind comments and thoughtful suggestions. I really appreciate them all. It is always educational, intriguing, and amusing to learn about differences in food preferences due to culture, geography and personal idiosyncrasies. I love reading all your different ways of eating liver. Above all, I have to thank those of you who hate eating liver; otherwise liver would be $10.00 a lb. LOL!

Regarding liver's health aspects, I think we all can agree that it is not a food that you should have for every meal, and that if you enjoy the taste, it is harmless to have it once in a while. Not too many meats can be bought for $0.49 a lb, [yes, it's boneless, :-) ].

Regarding coloring of the photos: I am not unfamiliar with various editing software; however, my photos posted are seldom modified or enhanced. I use four computer systems for various applications. My system has been color calibrated starting with the scanner, then the software, then the monitor, then the printer, then finally a specific paper. The calibration process requires the correct adjustment to each of the RBG and black color of each of the components and equipment. Any change will require the re-calibration of the entire system. Obviously, after this process, the digital output when it gets to your system is not the same as it will come out from my printer on a specific paper type.

To complicate matters, I photo my meals mostly in the evening using artificial light, and to speed things up, I only use the auto setting on my camera. So, what you see is what the camera�s firmware decides to do. It averages the colors and light intensity and it changes the balance even for the same shot, same angle same lighting if I just zoom in a little closer.

As to my plating, you may be surprised how little time I spend in piling food on a plate. I would not say that the out comes are accidental, but certainly I lack the patience and time to preplan my meals based on the plating prioities.

Have fun. Life is too long for miseries.

dcarch

I love liver. Chicken liver is my favorite, but calves liver is good too. I like it best with onions and bacon, but I've been known to eat it nearly any way.

When this year's beef was slaughtered, no one wanted the liver. Except me, of course, so I now have about 15 packages of liver in the freezer. The beef was about 18 months old, so I'm not sure I could characterize it as "calves liver", but it's definitely "baby beef".

Now, with my daily dose of Crestor my cholesterol is holding its own, but the doc discourages me from eating liver. Figures, I like it so it's bad for me. I still eat liver a couple of times a year, and Cooper gets the rest. He loves it too.

As for pictures, it's apparent that I'm not serious because I don't use any editing at all. Whatever my camera captures, that's what you all get. And yeah, I guess you can probably tell, ROFL.

That said, the plate in the second picture does look purple to me, and the fat on the bacon a bit orange, so I'm assuming the colors weren't quite as bright on the plate as they appear in the picture. I've mentioned before that I think dcarch's pictures are unique and some are quite beautiful, but not all of them make me want to eat the food. This one, oh yeah, I'd eat that in a heartbeat, after I scraped off the tomato stuff because I'm picky. (grin)

Annie

I love liver, especially chicken livers. Since DH's heart attack, he doesn't eat it, but I still cook it occasionally for myself. Even the kids when they were at home loved them when I made Liver over rice ala stir fried beef. I cut it in strips, dipped in egg, then flour and seasonings and deep fried it....served over rich with sauteed onions and peppers and a sauce made with beef broth.

The whole food/cholesterol thing is questionable to me. I am overweight (not a good thing) I use lard, eat eggs, liver, bacon, pork, beef and, of course dairy (have the cow).....all the things they say aren't good for our cholesterol levels....yet my recent test for it stated:
"Excellent". Makes one wonder..............

genetics dear gldno1! genetics. :)

yup, definitely genetics. I have something called "familial hyperlipidemia". The first time I had a cholesterol test it was 510. My Mother's was 497 and she's 4'10" and has never weighed more than 95 pounds her entire life. My very slender brother has cholesterol over 400 and has already had two heart attacks at age 57. My very overweight sister has low cholesterol and eats absolute junk, so go figure.

My material grandfather died of a "brain hemorrage" before he was 50, my mother was 12, because of his blocked arteries. My very slender mother and her very slender sister got those genetics.

My father had a dozen heart attacks and a quadruple bypass before he was 65 but he was very overweight, diabetic and ate butter on everything, did everything the doctor told him not to do. His family does not have a genetic heart/cholesterol issue, they all have diabetes instead!

I know I have those bad genetics, (thanks, Mother) so I try to do everything I can to make the impact less. That makes liver an occasional treat.

OK, now that's funny, thinking liver is a treat, LOL.

Annie

"OK, now that's funny, thinking liver is a treat, LOL"
Well, I think of it as a treat, too.

Thanks, Dcarch, for explaining your photography.
It makes sense.
It also explains why photos some others post appear to be magaziine quality.
They adjust all the factoring elements.

Someone said your vegetables appeared 'neon'.
They don't on my monitor.
Vivid, yes, but not neon.

Someone said your bacon appears orange.
Not on my monitor.
It appears to be at the absolute height of perfect crispiness.

Everyone perceives color in a different manner.
And not all monitors show color alike, either.
Whether our monitors are set 'right' or 'wrong',
We become accustomed to their appearance.
No matter what website we are viewing.

Someone else implied that I am "missing an important aspect" of your work.
I don't think I am missing a thing.
About anyone.

Your foods are vibrant.
Especially when on a stark white background as this one is.
They show a remarkable talent for color, design, and balance.

Not natural?
Only in that not many people plate food the way you do.

You have inspired me to try similar platings a time or two.
But my family claimed it didn't look 'natural'.
They want their servings in neat little 'piles',
side by side,
around the perimiter of the plate.
So. . .. .
That's what they get.
Besides, I don't have the knack for it that you do.

:>)

Rusty

Rusty, does the second plate appear to have a purplish hue to it? Especially around the edges? Or do both appear "stark white" on your monitor.
Jo

Jo, the shadows on the very edges of the plate have a slightly bluish-lavenderish hue to them.
But the center of the plate, where the food is,
Appears very VERY stark white.

Rusty

Dcarch's plates almost always have a purple color cast on my monitor. I don't know why. The food itself has a very natural color which looks accurate to me. The colors seem highly saturated but the hues seem right.

I like the photographic style of his photos. They are eye-catching, consistent and well suited to the subject matter.

Jim

Rusty - Yes we all perceive colors differently and may become accustomed to our TVs and monitors. But that doesn't impede us from objectively comparing the colors in displayed images to what we'd expect to see in real life. The fact that both will be relative to how we individually view colors has no bearing.

When I look at pictures taken by some of our best resident photographers such as Ann, Sharon, Jim, etc. They look stunningly lifelike. Dcarch's photos typically (not always) have colors that are tons more 'vivid' than real life. If you'd pause for a minute from defending someone who needs no defense and objectively scrolled through WFD 317, you would agree. End of story.

There is really no mystery to the color tinting and styling of my photos.

In addition to what I have already said, let me give you all a little photo tip here:

If you print your photos on high resolution papers, it is best to have as light a background as possible for economic reasons. Ink cartridges for printers are extremely expensive. A dark photo will use up a huge amount of ink. A black background will cost you over a hundred pages of normal document printing.

Therefore, you see mostly white for my photos.

I use a 5,500 Kelvin daylight CFL bulb for lighting, which is very bluish, and with the camera's auto-correction feature, which tends to favor flesh tones, the end result is what you see, redish tinting of a bluish artificial light, purplish.

dcarch

Thanks, dcarch, for confirming it's not just us!

I like the photographic style of his photos. They are eye-catching, consistent and well suited to the subject matter.

I'll second that. But you still couldn't pay me to eat that liver, LOL!

This forum just isn't very good for me to be reading in. The other day, i got stuck on the hardboiled egg thread and ended up with a dozen deviled eggs. Now I got a batch of pate chillin in the fridge... I vaguely remember that this particular issue was a driving factor in my watching few and fewer food related shows on TV!! In any event, love liver... My grandma made liver dumplings all the time when gramps was still alive, but a lot less afterwards. She and I were the only ones in the family, extended or otherwise, who had any use at all for liver. BTW: The chicken livers were 1.69 per/lb! Chicken aint all that cheap anymore, but what is...

Sage721, liver dumplings? ?

Recipe, please? ? ? ?

Rusty

Don't have a specific recipe, more of a concept. Ever have/make 'chicken and dumplings'? Stewed chicken with bisquick-style dumplings floating in it.... Saute chicken livers (not well done) in a flavorful broth, puree, then add to the dumplings. Like was stated above, liver's kinda cheap, and dumplings are way less plain with a little liver to spice it up.

I forgot... The stuff a google search came up with weren't much like what granny made. Think PA dutch homestyle. Stuff I saw was much more soup-like. Her dumplings sorta made a pillow (for lack of a better word) on the top rather that form up individually. May have been a technical error on her end, hey, that's how I like it... There was broth left, but not tons... think loose gravy... and the chicken falling off the bone..... On another note, that chicken liver pate (that you people just forced me to make) turned out wonderful! Thank you!

Sage, were they more like these? They're not much broth left by the time they're done.

LIVER KNEPP

3 slices bread
1/2 pound liver
1 small onion
1/8 tsp. cloves
1/8 tsp. allspice
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. dried parsley
1/2 tsp. salt
dash pepper
1 egg, beaten
1 cup flour
beef broth, about 2 quarts

Break up bread in a medium-size bowl and cover with water. Mix spices with flour. Grind raw liver and onion in a food chopper. Squeeze water out of bread, then combine with liver. Stir in beaten egg and flour. Drop from a tablespoon into boiling beef broth. Cook, covered, for 25 minutes.

ruthanna, that suonds much like a recipe I have. My father had a military buddy who married a German girl and brought her back to the states. The woman's name was Charlotte and she made liver dumplings, Dad loved 'em.

I spent a long time trying to re-create them and finally Roselin sent me a recipe that was very, very close. It's at home, I'll try to remember to post it here.

I loved the liver dumplings too...

Sage, pate sounds really good.

Annie

Never liked liver as a kid. Mum would season it and then flour and fry it in bacon grease. Tough and horrid tasting. Bleeeck! I do like chicken liver pate thou, and someone help me out here...I'm having a brain fart! Goose liver what is it called!? That is the most melt in your mouth delicious taste ever. NancyLouise

Foie gras.

Thanks Jim, I just could not think of the name. It's a nice little expensive treat ever so often. NancyLouise

Thanks, sage721.
That's a concept of liver & dumplings that sounds good.

When I googled for a recipe, all that came up
Used ground up liver, cooked in broth.
That didn't sound very good to me,
So I didn't read the whole recipe.
Don't know if they used the spices you use, Ruthanna.
Yours sounds like something I could try.

Rusty

FOAS, I just reread your answer to one of my posts on this thread.

Now, I know I don't always explain myself well.
So I use the "prewiew message" often,
Correcting spelling, wording, etc,
Hopefully to make what I am trying to say clear.

In spite of this,
you consistently misunderstand what I post.

You accuse me of 'defending' someone who doesn't need it.
And insinuate I haven't looked at the pictures others take.
So I suggest you go back and reread both my post and your answer.

I tried, (and thought I succeeded)
to explain how the colors look to me on my monitor.

If this is still not clear to you,
email me through Garden Web with what you can't understand.

Rusty

Ruthanna: that's a lot more like it. The dumplings were spooned into the broth and would 'set-up' on top. Not totally sold on using bread, the mix I remember was much more of a batter.
Annie: the pate is good. It's not foie gras, but hey, I'm not rich! Only down side is that nobody to eat it with. I made a 1/2 lb batch, but I couldn't even get any of my friends to try it.... so sad... don't know what they're missin...

Jimster said the magic words... yummmm.. We eat liver about once a month.. smothered in onions and with bacon, mashed potatoes, gravy, fried okra and green beans...or spinach if we can get it fresh.. Delicious..

Carolyn

Since we're talking about liver, I'm curious if anyone has ever used ground or minced chicken livers in Bolognese sauce. In early 20th century recipes for it, adding about 1/4 lb. of chicken livers with the other ground meat shows up in just about all of the recipes for this sauce. By mid-century, the liver seems to have disappeared.

Coming to this thread late, but - I like most organ meats. I buy hearts, spleens, livers, etc for very cheap at the Chinese store and make treats for me and the cat. My family and friends refuse to partake, so I haven't been very motivated to learn nice recipes for pig heart. When cooking for just me, I lean more toward caveman/starving grad student style cooking. Oh, and one of my favorite treats is your standard big pile of chopped liver at the Jewish deli. One thing I learned as a student was, order chopped liver and you get a ton of it, that and a knish and you're fed for the whole day. The next day, that is. This was typically something eaten at 4 am in Canters Jewish Deli in L.A., I forget where it was, Fairfax maybe? You know, you've been out all night clubbing and tripping at the Whiskey, everything's worn off, now you are really tired and really hungry. And you're 20 y/o - I hasten to add - the statute of limitations has long since run on all the silly things we used to do.