What is liver – step by step recipes for cooking dishes with photos

The content of the article

• What liver is made of
• Structure
• Liver home cooking
• Recipes from the liver
• Navy pasta
• Rustic cakes
• Vareniki
• Pancakes with liver
• Solyanka
• Pork liver paste
• Liverwurst
• Potato rolls with liver
• Liver pancakes
• Korean carrot liver cake

There are many recipes using liver: in homemade cakes, soups, dumplings, etc. What is a liver – even beginner cooks know. The giblets of domestic animals (cows, pigs) are fried in olive, vegetable or butter, boiled, stewed, seasoned with spices. Scrolling through the meat grinder cooked offal, get delicious liver fillings for pies, which will not leave indifferent any gourmet. Liver is much cheaper than meat, but is often superior in nutritional value..

What liver is made of

Liver – this is the insides of poultry (ducks, geese, chickens, turkeys), which are often referred to as “offal”, and domestic animals (pigs, cows, rams) used in cooking. Such offal as a diaphragm, heart, trachea, lung, liver, spleen, stomach, kidneys are suitable for cooking. The use of these organs for the preparation of homemade soups, dumplings, pancakes significantly reduces the cost of food, preserving the nutritional value, even exceeding it in comparison with meat dishes.

Structure

Different parts of the liver have a certain nutritional value. For example, per 100 g of beef liver (calorie content 183 kcal) accounts for 14.4 g of protein, 12.8 g of fat, 3.2 g of carbohydrates. Regularly eating beef liver, pork liver, rich in trace elements, especially iron, which has beneficial effects on the blood, you can forget about low hemoglobin. Caution should be taken in offering dishes with aged liver due to the increased content of vitamin D in the liver minced meat, which is harmful to the body of older people, but beneficial for children. Liver consists of:

• liver
• kidney
• heart
• lungs;
• trachea;
• apertures;
• stomach (abomasum, mesentery);
• udder.

Liver home cooking

How to cook beef or pork liver? The internal organs for ground liver meat (heart, kidneys, liver, lungs) are boiled in slightly salted water with one bay leaf until cooked (it is better to cook offal separately). After boiling the water, the giblets are cooked with the lid ajar over medium heat: lungs – an hour and a half, heart – an hour and a half, liver – 20 minutes, kidneys – 1 hour. Before cooking, the kidneys are soaked for 3-4 hours in cold water, periodically changing it, and the liver – 35 minutes. in milk, so it will be more tender.

The cooked cooled insides are scrolled through a meat grinder with onions and carrots fried in vegetable oil. Stuffed mincemeat with your hands, adding salt, ground black pepper to taste, a little broth in which offal was cooked. Store the workpiece in a cool place in glass containers, jars, watering with fat (lard) melted from fat..

Liver is ideal as a filling for dumplings, pancakes, pies, cold and hot snacks. What is prepared from offal:

• abomasum (stomach), udder, heart are used for Azerbaijani hash, Polish soup flasks;
• kidneys are suitable for cooking second courses, soups, hodgepodge;
• paste, second fried dishes, canned foods are more often prepared from the liver;
• stewed dishes of national Belarusian, Russian cuisine with cereals are prepared with a mesentery;
• from pork diaphragm, lard, kidneys, liver, heart, lungs prepare a meat appetizer Saltison – an analogue of a German Zeli;
• liver without kidneys and liver (trachea, heart, diaphragm, lungs) goes on the manufacture of sausages.

Recipes from the liver

Not only the nutritional value of the liver matters in cooking, but also the budget of dishes, a variety of recipes. Offal is fried, stewed, boiled, supplemented with spices, seasonings, giving a unique piquancy to food. You can add mushrooms, finely chopped greens, fried onions, rice, hard-boiled chicken eggs to the filling. Offal is subjected to different types of heat treatment:

• Boil the liver with bay leaf, fry with spices (rosemary, zira, coriander).
• Before use, it is recommended to blanch a raw pork liver (cut into large pieces, cook for about 6 minutes in salted water, rinse with clean cold water). Thanks to this method, the liver ceases to be bitter, becomes tender, juicy.
• The second dishes, which include vegetables and flour (shell, scars, flasks), are prepared with an udder, a stomach, a heart, and offal are cooked for many hours.
• Original schnitzels are made from the udder, which are breaded in breadcrumbs and then fried.
• Boiled kidneys are suitable for soups, solyanka, in stew – for second courses.

Navy pasta

• Time: half an hour.
• Servings Per Container: 10 Persons.
• Calorie dishes: 219 kcal.
• Purpose: second, lunch, dinner.
• Cuisine: International.
• Difficulty: Easy.

At first glance, such a simple everyday dish like navy pasta can be changed beyond recognition by using liver mince instead of the usual minced meat with onions. Lamb offal saturate pasta with an inimitable tart aroma. If the smell, the taste of lamb is unusual, it is allowed to use the entrails of pork or beef. Navy pasta is prepared from a pre-made liver very quickly, but if you take raw entrails, you need to take into account the cooking time – an hour and a half.

Ingredients:

• pasta – 0.5 kg;
• offal beef (heart, lungs, liver) – 0.5 kg;
• large onions – 2 pcs.;
• garlic – 3 cloves;
• butter, olive – 30 g each;
• salt to taste;
• ground black pepper – to taste.

Cooking method:

1. Cook pasta in salted water in the usual way, recline in a colander, rinse. Let the water drain.
2. Offal cooked in clean salted water (cook after boiling, periodically removing foam, should be 40-45 minutes), cool, pass through a meat grinder.
3. Finely chop the peeled onions and garlic, pour into a pan with hot olive oil, and pass until softened for 4-5 minutes on low heat..
4. Add the minced giblets to the roasting onion with garlic. Stew under the lid over low heat for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. Add butter, let it melt under the lid over low heat for a minute or two, turn off the stove.
6. Combine pasta with minced meat in a large skillet or pan, mix thoroughly.

Rustic cakes

• Time: 2 hours.
• Servings Per Container: 12 Persons.
• Calorie dishes: 183 kcal.
• Purpose: lunch, afternoon snack.
• Cuisine: Russian.
• Difficulty: medium.

Delicious liver pies are suitable for a hearty breakfast, brunch or just as a daily snack. If the dough is kneaded with live yeast, then it is better to put it overnight, “fast” yeast will reduce the time by 4 or more hours. The filling from the liver, if desired, is diversified by the addition of crushed hearts, lungs. Hearts, liver, and ventricles of birds (turkeys, chickens) are cooked even faster, they are also suitable for rustic pies.

Ingredients:

• flour – 700 g;
• milk – 500 ml;
• beef liver – 1 kg;
• egg – 1 pc.;
• carrots – 1 pc.;
• onions – 2 pcs.;
• butter – 20 g;
• vegetable oil – 6-7 tbsp;
• yeast – 9 g;
• sugar – 3 tbsp .;
• salt – 1.5 tsp;
• ground black pepper – to taste;

Cooking method:

1. Preparation of the test takes 50-75 minutes. Yeast is added to slightly warmed milk (it is better to use instant ones), 1 tbsp. sugar, 2 tbsp. flour, mix well, leave at room temperature for a quarter of an hour.
2. In a separate bowl, mix the remaining sifted flour, 2 tbsp. sugar, a pinch of salt. Continuing to mix the composition, gradually pour the dough, bring to a homogeneous consistency.
3. Add to the test 2.5 tbsp. vegetable oil, knead.
4. Cover the bowl with the dough with cling film, leave on the table for an hour.
5. The preparation of the filling begins with boiling the beef liver without salt. Dip the well-washed and medium-sized sliced ​​liver into a saucepan with cold water, cook after boiling for 35 minutes, periodically removing the scum that appears. Grind the cooled liver with a meat grinder or a blender.
6. In a hot frying pan, adding vegetable oil, fry the carrots chopped on a grater and diced onions for 5-6 minutes, before the end of the frying, add butter.
7. Thoroughly mix the chopped liver, carrot and onion frying, ground pepper, salt.
8. Oiling the countertop, roll the balls from the dough of a small size, put on the table for 6 minutes.
9. Having rolled the balls into flat cakes up to 1 centimeter thick, put the filling in the middle, fasten the edges tightly with your fingers.
10. Spread the formed pies on a pre-oiled baking sheet should be at a distance of 2 cm from each other, seam down.
11. After greasing the surface of the pies with a raw egg, leave on a baking sheet for ten minutes.
12. Pies are baked for a quarter of an hour in a preheated oven at a temperature of 200 degrees.

Vareniki

• Time: 2.5 hours.
• Servings Per Container: 12 Persons.
• Calorie dishes: 235 kcal.
• Purpose: lunch, dinner.
• Cuisine: Ukrainian.
• Difficulty: medium.

Very tasty, juicy are dumplings stuffed with a mixture of offal: liver, lung, heart. The kidneys can give a specific aroma that not everyone likes, so it’s best not to use them. Liver filling can be purchased in advance, or by frying offal with salt and black pepper, grind them with a blender. Due to kefir or ryazhenka, the dough turns out to be very tender, plastic, easy to sculpt.

Ingredients:

• liver – 350 g;
• wheat flour – 2.5 cups;
• egg – 1 pc.;
• kefir (any fat content) or fermented baked milk – 1 tbsp .;
• medium onion – 1 pc.;
• vegetable oil – 2 tbsp;
• salt – 1 tsp;
• ground black pepper – to taste;
• cooking water;
• sour cream – 2 tbsp.

Cooking method:

1. Beat a fresh chicken egg with salt with a whisk for about a minute.
2. Adding kefir or fermented baked milk in a bowl with a beaten egg, 1 tbsp. vegetable oil, mix until smooth.
3. Pour pre-sifted flour, knead high-density dough. Cover the bowl with cling film, let the dough stand cool for a quarter of an hour.
4. Roll out the finished dough with a rolling pin into a layer with a thickness of 1.5-3 mm, cut circles with the edge of a glass with a diameter of 5-7 cm, pressing on the dough.
5. Gently place 1 tsp. spoon the minced meat in the center of the cut circles, carefully fasten the edges so that the dumplings do not stick when cooking.
6. Put the blanks on a chopped flour board, leave in the freezer for a quarter of an hour.
7. Cook frosted semi-finished products, dropping them in boiling, slightly salted water 7 minutes after boiling.
8. On a hot pan put the diced onions, fry them for a minute. Fry cooked dumplings for two minutes, placing them in a pan with onions.
9. Served with sour cream.

Pancakes with liver

• Time: 1 hour..
• Servings Per Container: 5 Persons.
• Calorie content: 140 kcal.
• Purpose: breakfast, lunch, dinner, children’s table.
• Cuisine: Russian.
• Difficulty: Easy.

The recipe for custard pancakes is suitable for housewives who love hearty, wholesome, varied food to feed the household. Pork liver filling can be supplemented with other viscera: heart, lung. Pancakes can be cooked with yeast or kefir, and if you add a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil to the dough before frying, you can bake them in a pan without adding oil.

Ingredients:

• boiled pork liver – 300 g;
• wheat flour – 1 tbsp .;
• egg – 1 pc.;
• kefir – 1 tbsp .;
• boiling water -? st .;
• sugar – 1 tbsp;
• onions – 2 pcs.;
• salt – 1.5 tbsp .;
• soda -? tsp.

Cooking method:

1. Beat with a whisk raw egg, kefir, salt, granulated sugar.
2. Gradually introduce the sifted flour, without stopping stirring. Bring the dough to uniformity.
3. Pour soda into a glass with boiling water, stir, gently, but very quickly put into the dough, mix.
4. Fry pancakes from the finished dough.
5. Mix the boiled liver, chopped onion, salt in small pieces, grind the composition with a blender. Fry the resulting mass over medium heat in a dry frying pan for a minute or two, stirring occasionally.
6. Fill pancakes with liver filling: put one tablespoon of the mixture on the edge of the pancake, close the edges above the filling, roll.
7. Pancakes with liver can be served to the table, slightly fried in a pan until golden.

Solyanka

• Time: 4 hours.
• Servings Per Container: 6 Persons.
• Calorie dishes: 201 kcal.
• Purpose: lunch, dinner, first.
• Cuisine: Russian.
• Difficulty: High.

Solyanka is by no means an everyday dish, it is difficult to call it a budget option. By preparing such a soup, you can please the family who gathered for a festive dinner. The soup is thick, rich, warming. The island sour-salty taste is especially liked by men. The recipe for such a hodgepodge will take pride of place in the cookbook of a housewife who loves to indulge household members with delicacies.

Ingredients:

• meat bones – 0.5 kg;
• smoked ribs – 0.5 kg;
• beef kidneys – 100 g;
• beef heart – 100 g;
• beef tongue – 100 g;
• udder – 50 g;
• onions – 2 pcs.;
• olives – 100 g;
• barrel pickles – 3 pcs.;
• cucumber pickle – 100 ml;
• capers – 50 g;
• tomato paste – 2 tbsp .;
• olive oil and cream – 30 g each;
• lemon – a few slices;
• allspice, salt – to taste;
• greens – 1 bunch;
• sour cream to taste.

Cooking method:

1. Soak cut along the kidney in cold water for at least 3 hours, boil in clean salted water.
2. Boil the washed, aged 2-3 hours in clean water udder.
3. Boil until ready to cool the tongue, clean.
4. Cook the broth on smoked ribs and meat stones, strain, separate the meat from the bones.
5. Straw boiled offal (tongue, udder, heart, kidneys), meat.
6. Heat a mixture of butter and olive oil in a frying pan, add onion, chopped in half rings, fry for 1-2 minutes. Add tomato paste, stir, sauté for 7 minutes.
7. Peel pickles from peel, large seeds, cut into strips, add to the onion with tomato paste, fry for 2 minutes. After adding brine, simmer for a quarter of an hour under the lid over low heat.
8. Fry meat products in a mixture of olive and butter. When they are browned to a golden crust, combine with meat broth, onion sauté, capers, olives, allspice. Add salt if necessary, cook for 2-3 minutes over medium heat.
9. Serve the hodgepodge with a slice of lemon, sour cream, finely chopped herbs.

Pork liver paste

• Time: 5 hours 40 minutes.
• Servings Per Container: 12 Persons.
• Calorie dishes: 183 kcal.
• Purpose: breakfast, lunch, snack.
• Cuisine: European.
• Difficulty: medium.

Pork pate is a satisfying everyday dish that will take its rightful place on the festive table, if served in tartlets, puff baskets, on crackers, toasts, decorated with mayonnaise, herbs. When making a paste, some housewives add garlic, carrots, and favorite spices to the mass. An important condition for an ideal taste is a fresh, reddish-brownish liver without bile ducts or blood clots. Milk with sugar, in which it can be soaked, will give a special tenderness to the liver..

Ingredients:

• pork liver – 1 kg;
• lard – 100 g;
• onions – 3 pcs.;
• butter – 100 g;
• bay leaf – 1 pc.;
• ground black pepper – 1/3 teaspoon;
• dill – 1 bunch.

Cooking method:

1. Soak the pork liver before use in cold water or milk for about 4 hours, periodically replacing water.
2. Fry the liver, cut into small cubes, in a pan with 50 grams of lard for about 15 minutes, until the reddish juice ceases to stand out. Add ground pepper, lavrushka, cook over low heat for about 10 minutes.
3. Melt the remaining half of the lard in a pan, fry the onion, chopped into thin rings, into a golden hue..
4. Combine the liver with onion fry, simmer until tender.
5. After turning off the fire, add finely chopped dill to the liver, add butter, mix thoroughly.
6. Cool the mass, pass at least two times through the fine grill of the meat grinder or grind it with a blender, mix.
7. Paste should be stored in the refrigerator using a sealed glass dish or container..

Liverwurst

• Time: 3 hours.
• Servings Per Container: 12 Persons.
• Calorie dishes: 326 kcal.
• Purpose: breakfast, lunch, snack.
• Cuisine: European.
• Difficulty: High.

Boiled home-made liverwurst sausage is served with a side dish as a second course or cut to sandwiches. She will delight the household with a delicate meat aroma, excellent taste, different from the taste of shop sausage, thanks to natural ingredients. The presented recipe is classic, if desired, such a composition can be varied with pork, veal, beef liver.

Ingredients:

• boiled liver – 2 kg;
• purified intestines – 5 pcs. 6 meters long;
• eggs – 16 pcs.;
• onions – 3 pcs.;
• sour cream – 500 g;
• salt to taste;
• seasoning to taste.

Cooking method:

1. Boil the liver in slightly salted water. A mixture of kidneys, lungs, liver, heart is suitable for sausages.
2. Dice the peeled onions, cut into cubes with a liver, pass through a meat grinder twice (so the consistency of the sausage will turn out uniform).
3. Add eggs to the liver minced meat, mix thoroughly with your hands.
4. Put sour cream, favorite spices, salt, if desired, mix.
5. Tamp the thoroughly washed guts with liver filling, knotting the tips of the sausages.
6. Cook sausages until cooked need 60 minutes on low heat. If you plan to bake or fry products, the cooking time can be reduced to 40-50 minutes.

Potato rolls with liver

• Time: 5 hours.
• Servings Per Container: 16 Persons.
• Calorie dishes: 233 kcal.
• Purpose: lunch, afternoon snack, dinner.
• Cuisine: Russian.
• Difficulty: High.

It will take a long time to prepare potato rolls with liver, this recipe cannot be called simple, but the result will surely please the hostess. Yeast dough on mashed potatoes in combination with liver filling will create a feeling of festive dinner. The rolls are tasty, mouth-watering, satisfying, and beautiful. They are not ashamed to offer guests as the main dish.

Ingredients:

• liver – 2 kg;
• mashed potatoes – 400 g;
• decoction of potatoes – 200 ml;
• eggs – 2 pcs.;
• flour – 650 g;
• onions – 0.5 kg;
• vegetable and butter – 100 ml each;
• instant yeast – 8 g;
• sugar – 30 g;
• salt – 10 g;
• ground black pepper – to taste.

Cooking method:

1. Pour dry yeast, sugar into a warm potato broth, mix.
2. Combine the warm mashed potatoes with potato broth, one egg, mix. Pour the resulting mixture into a container with 0.5 kilograms of sifted flour, add salt, start kneading the dough.
3. Pour in vegetable oil, knead the dough, adding flour as necessary until the dough is soft, smooth, pliable.
4. Leave the dough in a bowl for about 2 hours.
5. When the initial volume of the dough increases approximately 2-2.5 times, it should be kneaded, put on a tabletop sprinkled with flour, divided into 4 parts, run in a little, left for 5-7 minutes.
6. Boiled liver (heart, liver, lung), cook until tender, cool, grind with a blender or through a meat grinder.
7. Fry the peeled, diced onion into small cubes in a pan with vegetable oil until golden brown. Turning off the stove, add butter. Stir. Mix cooled onion mass with chopped liver.
8. Roll out the dough in the form of a rectangle, place the forcemeat from a larger edge, roll.
9. Leave the rolled rolls on an oiled baking sheet, grease with an egg after 20 minutes, place in the oven, bake 40 minutes at 190 degrees.
10. Allow ready rolls to cool under a clean waffle towel, cut. Serve cold or hot.

Liver pancakes

• Time: 1 hour.
• Servings Per Container: 6 Persons.
• Calorie dishes: 149 kcal.
• Purpose: breakfast, lunch, dinner, children’s table.
• Cuisine: Russian.
• Difficulty: Easy.

The formulation of liver pancakes allows the use of any liver: pork, beef, chicken. Pancakes are useful, they cook very quickly, thanks to the onion they are aromatic, juicy. Such food will appeal to children, enrich the daily diet of those who do not really like the liver in its pure form, but suffers from a lack of useful trace elements, especially iron.

Ingredients:

• beef liver – 600 g;
• egg – 1 piece;
• wheat flour – 2 tbsp;
• onion – 1 piece;
• vegetable oil – 50 ml;
• salt to taste.

Cooking method:

1. Cook the washed beef liver in unsalted water until tender, cool.
2. Peel the onion, mince with the liver, beat the egg, add flour, salt, mix thoroughly.
3. On a hot frying pan with vegetable oil, spread the mass with a tablespoon.
4. Fry fritters on both sides until cooked, pour some water, simmer for 2-3 minutes under the lid.

Korean carrot liver cake

• Time: 2 hours.
• Servings Per Container: 12 Persons.
• Calorie dishes: 208 kcal.
• Purpose: lunch, dinner, holiday table.
• Cuisine: Asian.
• Difficulty: medium.

A hostess who wants to surprise guests with non-traditional, spicy, colorful snacks will come to the aid of a recipe for a liver cake with Korean carrots. If you have time, you can prepare such an appetizer yourself, or purchase it in a store, saving time. There are no unconditional recommendations for choosing a liver: chicken, pork, and beef are suitable. The cake turns out to be high-calorie, so it’s undesirable for them to abuse the diet.

Ingredients:

• beef liver – 1 kg;
• eggs – 2 pcs.;
• onions – 3 pcs.;
• fresh carrots – 2 pcs.;
• Korean carrots – 200 g;
• garlic – 4 cloves;
• vegetable oil – 50 ml;
• flour – 4 tbsp;
• mayonnaise – 400 g;
• hard cheese – 100 g (optional);
• salt to taste;
• sugar – 1 tbsp;
• water – 200 ml;
• table vinegar – 2 tbsp .;
• ground black pepper – to taste.

Cooking method:

1. Rinse raw beef liver, peel off the fillets, cut medium-sized cubes, chop with a blender, mix with one peeled, finely chopped onion.
2. After adding eggs, salt, ground black pepper, flour to the chopped liver, mix thoroughly until smooth without lumps.
3. Fry the pancakes on both sides in vegetable oil in a preheated pan until cooked, cool.
4. Grate fresh carrots on a coarse grater, add one finely chopped onion, fry vegetables in vegetable oil, not browning too much, 4 minutes.
5. Prepare the marinade: add vinegar, sugar, salt to the water – 1 tsp. One peeled onion, finely chopped, pour the marinade, stand for 6 minutes, drain the liquid.
6. It is recommended to collect the cake in the following sequence: one liver pancake, a layer of mayonnaise, a layer of pickled onions, a layer of Korean carrots, a layer of fried carrot and onion mass.
7. After mixing mayonnaise with chopped garlic, grease the sides, top of the cake. Garnish the top pancake with grated boiled egg, finely chopped herbs or hard cheese, finely chopped.
8. Serve chilled to the table.