50 ways to love your liver
Mar. 29th, 2008 01:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pallas_athenaAfter a long day of sorting out boring serious stuff, I went slightly insane and roasted a duck for dinner.
The duck turned out to come with ORGANS inside. I am a grown woman and I ought to be able to cope with ORGANS. Instead I stared at them for a while, then made a small pitiful noise and-- shame of shames-- asked my mother to extract the ORGANS from the duck's cavity.
(My mother cannot read Stephen King novels or watch movies with swearing in them, yet she can be perfectly relaxed while up to her elbows in duck viscera. Go figure.)
I did force myself to chop the ORGANS along with the neck and the wings and make gravy out of them. The rest of the duck got rubbed with oil/soy sauce/sake/5 spice powder and stuck in the oven. It was pretty damn tasty.
The one ORGAN that didn't get used for gravy was the duck's liver. All through the roasting-and-gravy-making process, this shiny red liver was lying there staring at me. As you probably know, the liver is the largest organ in the body. This duck liver appeared bigger than an actual duck. "Just throw it out," said my mother as she left to go out to dinner.
So there I was: duck roasting in the oven, duck gravy simmering on the stove, huge pot of red cabbage looming on the back burner-- and, lying on the counter, this shiny red raw liver that, only a short while earlier, had been helping the duck's body filter toxins out of its system. What toxins does a duck consume? Do I even want to know?
Various thoughts went through my head:
1) Aaaagghhhh slimy duck liver.
2) You're not a vegetarian. Eating meat means consuming dead animals. Deal with it.
3) Out of respect to the animal, you shouldn't waste any part of it.
4) Even the ORGANS aaaaagghhhhh.
5) This was a happy organic free range duck. As duck livers go, this one is probably quite classy.
6) I like pâté, and I've never made it.
7) I'm a grown woman and I ought to be able to cope with ORGANS.
8) Aaaaaaagghhh slimy duck liver.
9) PÂTÉ. NOW.
So a quick Google search led me to this recipe. You'll note that it says "any sinewous bits removed." Both "sinewy" and "sinuous" mean something very different from the consistency of raw duck liver, which is about like meat Jello. ["jelly" to you Brits.] I found this out by extracting bits of stringy connective tissue with my fingers. I think it's safe to say I am now slightly more au fait with ORGANS. Plus, the pâté turned out pretty damn tasty. I used the zest and juice of an orange and some ginger liqueur. It got the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
speedlime seal of approval.
Post-duck, Speedy and I got creative. I'm painting a rather frightening sea monster onto a square of silk, and Speedy is doing something unnatural to the seat of her trousers with acrylics. Apparently it is meant to give male onlookers an "insta-boner." I'm impressed with this term. I think we have all learnt something today about ORGANS.
The duck turned out to come with ORGANS inside. I am a grown woman and I ought to be able to cope with ORGANS. Instead I stared at them for a while, then made a small pitiful noise and-- shame of shames-- asked my mother to extract the ORGANS from the duck's cavity.
(My mother cannot read Stephen King novels or watch movies with swearing in them, yet she can be perfectly relaxed while up to her elbows in duck viscera. Go figure.)
I did force myself to chop the ORGANS along with the neck and the wings and make gravy out of them. The rest of the duck got rubbed with oil/soy sauce/sake/5 spice powder and stuck in the oven. It was pretty damn tasty.
The one ORGAN that didn't get used for gravy was the duck's liver. All through the roasting-and-gravy-making process, this shiny red liver was lying there staring at me. As you probably know, the liver is the largest organ in the body. This duck liver appeared bigger than an actual duck. "Just throw it out," said my mother as she left to go out to dinner.
So there I was: duck roasting in the oven, duck gravy simmering on the stove, huge pot of red cabbage looming on the back burner-- and, lying on the counter, this shiny red raw liver that, only a short while earlier, had been helping the duck's body filter toxins out of its system. What toxins does a duck consume? Do I even want to know?
Various thoughts went through my head:
1) Aaaagghhhh slimy duck liver.
2) You're not a vegetarian. Eating meat means consuming dead animals. Deal with it.
3) Out of respect to the animal, you shouldn't waste any part of it.
4) Even the ORGANS aaaaagghhhhh.
5) This was a happy organic free range duck. As duck livers go, this one is probably quite classy.
6) I like pâté, and I've never made it.
7) I'm a grown woman and I ought to be able to cope with ORGANS.
8) Aaaaaaagghhh slimy duck liver.
9) PÂTÉ. NOW.
So a quick Google search led me to this recipe. You'll note that it says "any sinewous bits removed." Both "sinewy" and "sinuous" mean something very different from the consistency of raw duck liver, which is about like meat Jello. ["jelly" to you Brits.] I found this out by extracting bits of stringy connective tissue with my fingers. I think it's safe to say I am now slightly more au fait with ORGANS. Plus, the pâté turned out pretty damn tasty. I used the zest and juice of an orange and some ginger liqueur. It got the
speedlime seal of approval.Post-duck, Speedy and I got creative. I'm painting a rather frightening sea monster onto a square of silk, and Speedy is doing something unnatural to the seat of her trousers with acrylics. Apparently it is meant to give male onlookers an "insta-boner." I'm impressed with this term. I think we have all learnt something today about ORGANS.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2008-03-29 10:58 am (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-29 02:33 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-29 06:30 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-29 11:25 am (UTC)And I'm glad I'm not the only one....
no subject
on 2008-03-29 02:35 pm (UTC)We should talk about what you're thinking of for your Handel House gig. If it's within my powers, I'm happy to have a go.
no subject
on 2008-03-29 05:12 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-29 01:07 pm (UTC)(and I miss you, come say hello while you are in town:))
no subject
on 2008-03-29 02:35 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-29 02:45 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-30 02:58 am (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-29 05:05 pm (UTC)Our cats used to always benefit from the giblets. But perhaps next time I am faced with a liver I will be emboldened by your courage to try something new. It sounds like you made a lovely dinner!
no subject
on 2008-03-30 03:00 am (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-30 02:31 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2008-03-30 03:42 pm (UTC)"I think we have all learnt something today about ORGANS"
on 2008-03-31 10:37 pm (UTC)I continue to thank you for the yummy kosher (and kosher-for-Passover) chopped liver you brought up from London to Oxford for our seder in '97. I have never _made_ chopped liver, tho' -- so I applaud your pâté-making, which sounds scrumptious indeed!
Sounds like your fabric-related artistic endeavours went well! Our last painting-related project--Mike doing up the cat and duckling masks for Purim for our friends Darcy and Shira [photos are up on Facebook; Mike and I had premade masks, owl and vixen (she was a...when she went to school, and though she be but little she is fierce!)]--is not the sort that would give onlookers an "insta-boner" (I do appreciate the addition to our vocab, though)...
unless there is something quite ODD about them (oh, is THAT what you're into?!)... ;)
Have a great rest of the time in DC and say hi to the ol' town for me!