The World Table

An interactive culinary compendium: recipes, lexicon and study

North Carolina · Breakfast

Livermush

  • Intermediate
  • 2 h
  • roughly 2 of 4 for cost

gently hot · rich Leads with a warm current of chile, richness that coats and comforts.

Ingredients

  • 500g pork liver
  • 500g pork head meat or shoulder
  • 1.5L water
  • 1 onion, halved
  • 200g cornmeal
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp black pepper
  • 1 tsp sage
  • 1/2 tsp cayenne
  • Butter for frying

The skills inside

Sautéing & the shallow fry

Allergen screen

Found: dairy

Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.

Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.

Method

  1. Simmer the liver and pork with the onion 1 hour until tender. Strain, keeping 1L of the broth, and grind or chop the meat fine. 60 min
  2. Bring the broth to a simmer and whisk in the cornmeal, cooking 20 min until very thick. 20 min
  3. Stir in the meat, salt, pepper, sage, and cayenne. Season boldly.
  4. Pack into a loaf pan, cool, and chill overnight until firm.
  5. Slice 1cm thick and fry in butter over medium heat 4-5 min a side until a deep crust forms. Do not flip early. 5 min

How to tell it is going right

This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.

Sautéing & the shallow fry 80 recipes

  • Everything sits in a single layer with visible space between the pieces: nothing stacked, nothing touching, or the pan is too small for the quantity.
  • The pieces move freely and keep moving, sliding across the pan rather than sticking and tearing when the pan is worked.
  • Light even browning arrived at quickly: colour on most faces, not the deep crust of a sear and not grey.
  • A thin film of fat with the food glossed by it: no pool left in the pan at the end, and nothing greasy on the fingers or the plate.
  • Cooked through but still firm, having spent only a few minutes in the pan: anything that has gone soft has been in there too long.

Where it goes wrong Too much went in at once, the pan cooled, and the food released its water: what was meant to brown in three minutes stews for ten and comes out grey, slack and wet.

At the Table

The Pour
Mimosa (weekends only)
Also Right
Cava, straight
From the Taps
-
Zero-Proof
Fresh orange juice & café au lait

Morning food wants brightness and bubbles, or honest coffee: nothing that argues before noon.

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Film school

This dish, cooked on camera Search films of Livermush Search YouTube: J. Kenji López-Alt on Livermush A YouTube search for J. Kenji López-Alt and this dish. No affiliation.