I made Thomas Keller's recipe for liver with poached figs, bacon,
caramelized onions, and a red-wine jus. Served it on top of simple mashed
skin-on potatoes.
The figs were poached in a mixture of red wine, star anise, cinnamon, bay
leaf, and peppercorns.
The onions were whole cippolini which were caramelized in a mixture of
butter and grapeseed oil, then bathed with chicken stock and roasted.
The bacon was twofold: Four weeks ago, my butcher arranged to smoke the
whole belly of a freshly-slaughtered pig for me. I got the smoked belly
yesterday. To accompany the liver, I cut lardons out and cooked them in a
cast-iron pan in the oven. As a final garnish for the meat, I used two
strips of pre-cooked bacon and put them over the cooked liver.
The liver was calves' liver, two of them. They were dried off with paper
towels, salted, peppered, floured, and pan-fried in grapeseed oil and
butter.
The recipe was very time-consuming, as was the clean-up. At one point I had
pots on all four burners and another pot in the oven.
Lin drank Pinot Noir with dinner (left over from the wine used to poach the
figs); I had water, since I have to work tonight. We've got some Stilton
with apricots that we had originally contemplated having as dessert, but we
were too stuffed to follow through on that.
Bob