Friday 25 February 2011

Something for the weekend

I've had so much response to the clip of me eating Braised Liver & Bacon Hotpot that I've decided to print the recipe here so that you can make your own version of this recipe from the Better Hospital Food recipe vault.

Now, this version feeds rather a lot of people so you may need to ask a few friends round. Unfortunately the recipe doesn't have any tips on how to make it taste as bad as the one I had. A good place to start would be to buy the oldest and toughest slab of ox liver that you can find and then some mechanically recovered slivers of connective pig tissue. Serve with waterlogged cabbage and unseasoned mashed potato. Here's the recipe. Let me know how you get on.


Braised Liver and Bacon Hotpot Leading chef's recipe
Ingredients For 100 Servings
9kgLiver Sliced
350mlVegetable Oil
1.8kgBacon Back
1.5kgOnions Diced Fresh
2kgSwede Diced
2kgCarrots Diced
180gFlour Plain White
370gMustard Whole Grain
7ltChicken Stock
120gSage
8kgPotatoes Cooked Sliced
250gButter
10gBlack Pepper Ground
Method
Texture:Slices of liver and pieces of bacon with lots of diced vegetables all under a crisp sliced potato topping. The stock/sauce element should be quite thin.
Colour:The top will be a golden brown and the stock will be pale and will have a slight orange/golden tinge to it. The colours of the vegetable should be seen.
Flavour:Lots of strong flavour to the stock from the vegetables, bacon and liver. The dish contains grain mustard, which should be noticeable but not overpowering.
1.Heat 200ml of the oil and fry the liver browning well on all sides. Remove and drain well. Arrange the liver in trays
2.Heat the remaining oil and fry the bacon pieces till it starts to brown, add the diced, onions, swede and carrots and cook for 3 minutes without colouring the vegetables. Sprinkle in the flour and stir in well, cook for a further minute stirring often. Stir in 250g of the mustard and then gradually add the hot stock stirring in well till smooth.
3.Add the sage then pour the vegetable and bacon mix over the liver.
4.Par boil or steam the slices of potato. Allow to cool arrange the slices over the liver ensuring a complete and even covering.
5.Melt the butter and mix in the remaining mustard. Brush the sliced potatoes with it. Season with the salt and pepper and bake in a preheated oven 180ºc/350fº/gas 4 until the potatoes are fully cooked and golden brown


Calories
314
Protein
23 g
Fat
20 g
Carbohydrates
16 g

15 comments:

  1. That is a coincidence, I made liver , bacon and onions today, but I use lambs liver as ox and pig liver are far too rich.

    I know lambs liver is the more expensive type , but if you want a better tasting meal it is the best i think.

    Ness..

    ReplyDelete
  2. Isn't 9 kg of liver and 1.8 kg of bacon a bit generous, from memory you only had one piece of each in yours:-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Good grief... 9 kgs!!! That is about 20lbs worth of liver... should just about do my greedy family.. and 7 LITRES of stock... oh, how I love this recipe. No half measures, just bloody enormous ones. Marvellous.
    Right. Off to the butcher I go. xx

    ReplyDelete
  4. Now I love my liver but I think a typo error made me think a little, so I'll make an adjustment.
    Lams liver here in north Wales is a little thin on the ground till next week when the lambing season starts, then its off to my local (on the mountain) organic butcher, liver for everyone in the family,and as always we celebrate the lambing season with a sunday lunch of liver so tender it melts in your mouth... cheers TM.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Afternoon all - yeeks liver 'n' stuff no good for a veggie - I'll stick with my glass of Ned's Sauvignon Blanc from NZ - probably not gutsy enough anyway for the liver recipe!

    Best wishes from Cats' Mother and lazy cats (well it is raining).

    ReplyDelete
  6. If you use 10% of the amounts quoted, and substitute "liver" with lamb's liver (although calve's liver is my favourite) and a reasonable cut of bacon (preferably smoked), then this recipe is not at all bad.

    However, chillimg this and putting it into large aluminium vats and transporting it 200 miles before reheating could "take the edge" off the culinairy experience!!!

    Colin

    ReplyDelete
  7. Ahhh, you cannot beat Welsh liver or Welsh lamb, tastiest in the world and i miss my Welsh lamb.

    When you buy lambs liver here ( Crete ) you have to buy the lights as well..!!

    They make home made sausages including lights (lungs, and pipes) mixed with chicken gizzards and pigs lights, worst thing i ever tasted.

    Ness..

    ReplyDelete
  8. Peoples!!!!
    Did you read the bit where it says for how many?
    Chef, a few kg's more carrots for the eyes!

    ReplyDelete
  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  10. TALKING of chopped liver....don't you just love the way institution refer to the patient in the third entity. The case number. Meat on a slab waiting for dissection. A bit like the 'food' you were served, 'food' - but not in the three dimensional sense. Not just pavement pizza as you might call it, but there was i thought a distinct atomic sheen. Probably aquired from the regeneration plant.
    Lord almighty how did you take ten weeks of that ManofBath? And a fine example of how the darkness always serves the light in the dualistic sense. You did an awesome job exposing the diet of the diabolical, another dark corner of health 'care.'

    I just read the statement from Nuffield. Denial is par the course. Your dealing with a machine. The great bureaucratic phantom carousel of indifference. There is no great all powerful hand turning cogs on this wheel. Not even an ole'wizard hiding behind a flimsy curtain pulling levers. It's just a saturated culture of denial of the human condition, humanity. Man has the sheer inconvenient audacity to think and feel for himself. The machine can't account for that - computer says no!
    Lousy food is all part of the culture of indifference and rewarding senior management for non accountability.
    One of the twelve twin opposite characteristics include indifference. And it's polarity is love. And they are the manifestations of the same energy in extreme. Any place of healing will always attract both these energies. And true healing can not occur without some act of love. All hospitals have their share of both these energies. Money and time management are not responsible for how these energies manifest themselves. It's what the institute cultivates....a culture for responsible but not accountable, and therefore the perfect hiding place for indifference.
    All accountability belongs to the bureaucratic system. The 'machine.' We can't reason with this machine. It has to be exposed.

    I love your work here.
    Your light is bright Mark Sparrow. Keep going!
    -And i hope you were tucking into a good Sunday dinner!
    Peace and Healing to you. Namaste.

    LdV, Essex
    ...

    ReplyDelete
  11. Stop being picky, become a vegetarian, it's nice and easy.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I don't eat much meat but what I do choose to eat I enjoy. It's a good way of fighting anaemia and the amino acids are good for rebuilding tissue. Believe it or not, meat can be healthy,

    ReplyDelete