Liver Pudding, Mariner's First Try

Not long ago, I posted my Grandma's recipe for Liver Pudding (as remembered by my Mother), and.early this week I decided to give it a try. I ran into several problems, however, the greatest of which was procuring the main ingredient: pork liver.

Everywhere I looked, the result was the same - nothing, nada, zilch!  And when I asked the so-called butchers about it, I ususally just got blank looks.  The very best response I got was from the manager of an "organic" meat shop.  The guy scratched his head, and said: "I don't know if any of my suppliers can get it for me; I don't even know how much to charge, because I don't know what the price and minimum order is for me!  I could maybe find out for you in two or three weeks..."

He did allow as how he could get beef liver pretty easily, but when I asked about pricing, he told me that his "organic" beef liver usually sold for nearly $6.00/lb!  The grocery store down the street sells beef liver, peeled, deveined, and sliced, for $3.49/lb!  So guess what I did...

Changing a major component - like a principal meat ingredient - can't help but affect the outcome of a recipe in some dramatic way, so I decided to try out a small batch to begin with.  I was in for another major shock, however, when I went to buy the pigs feet.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that grocery that sold my beef liver for $3.49/lb, also sold frozen pigs feet, so (without looking at the price) I scarfed up a package for my experiment.  Imagine my heart attack when I paid for the meat, and discovered that pigs feet sold for nearly $6.00/lb! This is pigs feet! My Dad and Granddad both loved to eat them as a pickled item, but people who weren't raised in the country (which, these days, is most people) don't even think of them as edible parts! Who is going to pay that kind of price on any regular basis?

So anyway, the final recipe for what I did create is as follows:

Ingredients

beef liver, peeled, deveined	454 g	1 lb
pigs feet, fresh frozen	680 g	1.5 lb
Onion, dried flakes	14.5 g	2 Tbs
Sage, ground or rubbed	2 g	1 Tbs
Salt	3 g	½ tsp
Garlic, dried granulated	1.5 g	½ tsp
Black Pepper	1 g	½ tsp
Allspice	0.5 g	¼ tsp

 Directions:

Clean the pigs feet and place them into a sauce pan, add water to cover, and bring to a boil.  Once boiling, cut back to a simmer, and allow to cook until tender. When done, de-bone and remove any tendons or ligaments that remain solid. The yield will be about 13 oz (365 g) in skin and other gelatinous material.  Place this material in a bowl in the refrigerator to chill.

Rinse the beef liver in clear, fresh water to remove any remaining blood. Place the pieces in a sauce pan with water to cover, and lightly poach. As soon as the pieces start to firm up, remove them from the poach water, and immerse in ice water to stop the cooking. Finish chilling the cooled liver in the refrigerator.

Both meats are relatively free of connective tissue, so there is little need to do a coarse grind. Instead grind the meats together using a 3/16" (4.5 mm) or 1/4;' (6 mm) plate, then thoroughly mix in the remaining ingredients. Grind the mix again using a 1/8" (3 mm) plate, and again mix thoroughly. Perform a final grind after this mixing, again using the 1/8" plate.

At this point the seasonings should be well and thoroughly dispersed throughout the meat mix, and the mix itself should have nearly the consistency of a very fine paste.  Pack the meat into a cooking mould of your choosing, lined with parchment paper or food wrapping film.  Make sure that the meat is packed tightly into all of the recesses of the mould, or gelatin from throughout the mix will settle into the voids, adversely affecting the taste, texture, and visual appeal of the final product.  Bake the filled mould in a cool oven (180-200°F or 80-94°C) to an internal temperature of 145°F (63°C).

Following cooking, remove the mould from the oven, and chill the outside of the mould in ice water.  When the mould has cooled sufficiently, chill in the refrigerator for about eight hours.  When chilled, the loaf can be decanted and, if desired, sliced, for immediate use.

Observations:

I like garlic in my meat dishes, and most sausages (and this is a sausage!) taste a little better with some additional spice, so, as you can see, there are a couple of minor extra ingredients over what Mom and Grandma used to use.

Surprisingly, my final product tastes very similar to what I remember of Grandma's final product.  The liver flavor is a bit stronger than commercial liverwurst, and the sage comes through easily.  Since I used dried onion flakes instead of fresh onion, there wasn't as strong an onion flavor; and it seemed that cooking the entire mix together might have resulted in better distribution of the seasonings, as well as a somewhat milder product overall.

I will likely do this again, but after the experience of preparing the feet for use, I will do things differently.  After I cooked and de-boned the pig's feet, I was left with about 365 grams of usable material out of a 1½ lb package!  As far as I could tell, there was little or no actual meat at all, just skin, a little fat, and a lot of connective tissue.  I guess that is why Mom called it "gelatin". As near as I can figure, the entire function of the pigs feet, is to provide a binder so that the ground liver can hold its shape.  I think next time I try this, I'll just use some Knox® gelatin, and maybe add in a little ground pork shoulder to dilute the liver flavor a bit.