>>Avivah, I’m going to hijack your post here to ask you about chicken livers. Do you know how to prepare them? I have been wondering this for a long time. <<
Yes, I do! It’s kind of like making bread dough – in the beginning, hearing about all of the steps sounds overwhelming and then you do it, and it’s really not such a big deal. I find that kashering livers myself saves me a boatload of money.
I use a gas burner on my stovetop, so that’s what my instructions are for. You can use a grill and can use the same steps for the actual kashering process.
Before I start with the actual livers, I prepare the stovetop. I take the grates off of all the burners, and cover the burner I’m going to be using with a disposable aluminum pan. You can see below how I cut a big X and then folded back the metal flaps to create a hole that will fit around the burner.
Put the pan over the burner on your stove – this isn’t necessary but I like to minimize the work I have to do, and it makes it easier to clean up the splatters. (You can reuse this drip pan for a future liver preparing session, if you like – I had accidentally thrown mine away so I had to make a new one.)
I bought a two sided hinged rectangular grill thing (sorry, no idea what the term is for this) with two handles – I thought it was impossible to find it in Karmiel so we bought it in Jerusalem, but last week saw it in two places locally (for those who are interested – with kitchenware in Mega Bul and Gama Deal). I got the big one but have since learned that all the livers can’t simultaneously roast at one time when it’s full, so I really could have gotten the smaller size. At least it makes it easy to rest on the pan so I don’t have to hold it at all while it’s grilling.
Anyway, this grilling tool is something you can find with supplies for grilling. You can see below that the raw livers are on one part of the hinged grill, and the other part is resting at a 90 degree angle.
Sprinkle the liver with coarse salt.
Turn on fire and start to grill the livers. When one side seems to be done, flip it over to the other side.
(The liver above had just been flipped.) The main caution I’d make at this point is to watch the heat of the fire – you don’t want to end up with chunks of charcoal, but you want to make sure that the insides are dry and there’s no blood left. I usually grill the first side on high and the second side on low. Remember, don’t stick a fork inside the liver to check it when it’s grilling because it will make your fork unkosher if there’s still blood there.
When the livers are roasted, put them on a plate or in a pan. I’ve heard that you’re supposed to rinse the salt off at this time, and tried to confirm if it’s necessary to do or nice to do, but am not yet clear on that so would say to rinse it off. This is a pain since freshly roasted livers are delicious! And they’re not quite the same when you rinse them first. (If you know about this, please let me know – I’d be very glad not to have to rinse them.)
When I kasher livers, I prepare a large batch at a time (this last time I did three kilos), and freeze it into portion sizes. As far as using the livers, you can turn them into the classic chopped liver (which I have never done), or use them in some creative concoctions. My kids like them straight off of the grill, so I have to make an effort to ration them so they last for future cooking experiments. 🙂
Do you kasher your own livers? Is this similar to what you do? Have you found the money spent justifies the money saved?
Avivah
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