How to Cook Beef Liver: Recipes

Fans of early "Saturday Night Live" episodes won't soon forget Chevy Chase dressing up as Julia Child and proclaiming, "Save the liver!" Show fans adopted the war cry, but it's not the first time liver has been the brunt of jokes. Add the following five dishes to your liver recipe files to expand your cooking horizons and surprise picky eaters. All of these recipes are short, so you won't have to spend lots of time in the kitchen, which will probably endear you to liver even more.

Things You'll Need

• Beef liver
• Cooking oil
• Spices
• Butter
• Onions
• Vinegar
• Flour
• Tomato sauce
• Bacon
• Brown sugar
• Rolls
• Breadcrumbs
• Eggs
• Worcestershire sauce
• Ketchup
• Mustard
• Blender

Instructions

1. Try this easy recipe for beef liver and onions. Heat one teaspoon of cooking oil in a skillet. Add two large, quartered onions, a bay leaf, salt and pepper. Cook 20 minutes until the onions are sizzling, and then remove them from the pan. Cut a pound of baby beef liver into strips. Re-heat the skillet with a teaspoon of oil. Add the liver strips and saute for two to four minutes. Drain the liver on paper towels. Melt one to two tablespoons of butter and turn up the heat. Add liver and onions, plus two tablespoons of vinegar, and cook a few minutes.

2. Serve Beef Liver Italiano for a different taste. Fry a large, chopped onion in three tablespoons of cooking oil over medium heat. Set aside the onions. Slice a pound of beef liver. Dredge it in a mix of one-half of a cup of flour, salt and pepper. Brown the liver quickly on each side. Add the onions. Pour an eight-ounce can of tomato sauce over the liver and onions and stir. Sprinkle one-half of a teaspoon of oregano over the dish and cook for up to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. Turn up your family's interest in liver by making bacon-fried liver. Heat a large frying pan. Fry a large onion cut into pieces in a pound of bacon and set them aside. Rinse the beef liver in cold water, dredge it in flour and fry on both sides. Season with salt, pepper and brown sugar. Add the bacon-cooked onions and simmer for a few minutes before serving.

4. Try something different by preparing Austrian liver dumplings. Cut up one-half of a pound of calf's liver into chunks and puree the meat in a blender. Soak four sandwich rolls or a loaf of Italian bread in water until soft. Squeeze out the moisture and mince up the bread. Cream one tablespoon of butter with an egg, one cup of breadcrumbs, parsley, salt and pepper. Mix ingredients together and form one-inch dumplings with your hands. Add the dumplings to stew or soup or serve them with gravy.

5. Make baked barbecue liver using one baking dish to handle the entire job. Place these ingredients into the dish: one pound of beef liver, one large onion (sliced), four tablespoons of butter, two tablespoons each of water, vinegar and Worcestershire sauce, two teaspoons each of sugar and prepared mustard and three-fourths of a cup of ketchup. Mix, cover the pot and bake for one hour at 375 degrees.

Tips & Warnings

• Be cautious about over-cooking liver as it can get tough if it cooks too long.

References

• Westonaprice.org; liver recipe
• Cooks.com; liver dishes
• AllRecipes.com; liver recipes

Resources

• Recipeland; dumpling recipe
• Basic recipes; baked barbecue liver