Weeknight Meals as a Weather Indicator

As I was organizing my picture directories, I have noticed that most of my main meals pretty much reflect the weather on that particular day: lousy days are great for comfort food and sunny days for nice light food. It is not difficult to match the photos of my food with weather.

 

Liver and Mushrooms with Egg Pasta

The caramelized mushrooms and onions almost completely cover the liver taste that so many people dislike. This is wonderful and tasty meal for any kind of weather. Recipe is the same as Calf Liver with Mushrooms & Spaetzle except I was using egg noodles instead of spaetzle.

Veal Stew à la Osso Buco

Perfect food for cloudy, rainy weather. Since I have used slow cooker for this stew it was no-work after initial browning of the veal. Can be done in big batches since it freezes so well. It is cooked just like Osso Buco Chops.

 

Salmon Sashimi with Cucumber Salad and Gari.

Yes, it was beautiful, sunny day when I prepared this simple and quick meal. All you need is super fresh salmon.

Calf Liver with Mushrooms & Spaetzle

If you serve this meal to dedicated liver or offal hater they will lick their chops not knowing what they just ate, it is that good. After all prep is done it takes just minutes to cook and serve. I highly recommend to cook Spaetzle or pasta ahead of time, just before starting to fry liver. Spaetzle can be reheated by tossing them in butter when you are reducing wine in the sauce.

This is not lean cuisine by any stretch of imagination but once in a while I don't think it will hurt. It is rich and it is very, very good. To make it even more luxurious, just before serving I put in few drops of truffle oil. The aroma just made it very special.

Note: You can substitute thin slices of pork tenderloin in place of liver. The cooking method is exactly the same.

Ingredients:

§    1 lb liver, beef or calf, all membranes and veins removed and liver cut into thin slices

§    2 Tbs. grape seed or vegetable oil

§    2 cups of sliced Cremini mushrooms

§    5 shallots, sliced or 1 small onion, chopped

§    1 tsp. caraway seeds, ground

§    1 tsp. white pepper or to taste

§    1 tsp. Kosher salt

§    1 cup dry white wine

§    3/4 cup (6oz.) 35% cream

§    Nutmeg

§    2 Tbs. chopped parsley

§    Spaetzle or broad noodles

Directions:

Preheat a bowl and keep at hand. Dry liver strips with paper towel and then toss with 1 Tbs. of oil.

Cook spaetzle, toss with butter and keep warm.

Heat up stainless steel skillet and when hot add 1 Tbs. of oil. When very hot drop in liver strips in one layer and brown for about 30 seconds and then turn all strips on other side and cook another 30 seconds. With slotted spoon remove liver to preheated bowl, sprinkle generously with salt, toss and keep warm. Discard all oil from skillet, put back on medium high heat and add 1/2 Tbs. of oil. Drop in shallots and mushrooms together with caraway seeds and white pepper and sauté while scraping fond from bottom of skillet. When mushrooms are soft and shallots are translucent increase heat to high, pour in the wine and reduce wine to approximately 1/4 cup. Pour in cream, stir and reduce till sauce is thick and looks velvety. Return liver strips together with accumulated juices to skillet, sprinkle with freshly ground nutmeg and stir till liver is reheated and coated with sauce.

Serve on individual plates with spaetzle and garnished with chopped parsley.

Liver Dumpling Soup

Yes, another dumpling recipe. This comfort soup is one of our favorite soups to go to when it is miserable outside. It is too bad that many people would never give a second look at anything that has a liver in it. I use very fresh calf or baby beef liver for these dumplings and you can’t detect any liver taste or smell at all. As is the case with most soups you can easily control how substantial the soup is just by modifying ratio of stock to solids, in this case number and size of dumplings and amount of egg noodles and vegetables.

For dumplings:

Baby beef or Calf liver, 1 slice

1 egg, beaten

1/4 cup milk

1/2 tsp. white pepper

1 tsp. salt

Garlic, 2 cloves, chopped

1/2 tsp. marjoram

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 cup bread crumbs mixed with 1 Tbs. flour/

Breadcrumbs, as required

Soup:

8 cups beef or chicken stock, carton or can is fine

1 large carrot

1/2 medium onion

1 stalk celery, all finely chopped

Marjoram

Garlic, finely chopped

Fine egg noodles
Parsley

Remove all traces of membrane on liver, roughly chop and then run through grinder or food processor to make a coarse paste. Remove to mixing bowl and add beaten egg, milk, salt, pepper, baking powder and marjoram and mix till well combined. You will now have fairly thin batter. Add 1/2 cup of bread crumbs with flour, mix well and let it rest for 10 minutes or so for bread crumbs to absorb moisture from liver mixture. Remix and add adjust with more bread crumbs or milk until you can form a ball. Form walnut size balls and set aside.
To make soup, pour stock  into a soup pot, drop in all chopped vegetables and bring to boil. Cook for 5 minutes, lower heat to simmer and drop in all liver dumplings, being careful not to splash hot stock. Gently lift dumplings with spatula from bottom so they don’t stick. When all of them are floating on top, cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Add fine noodles and stir to prevent noodles from sticking together. Cook additional 5 minutes, add marjoram, taste and  adjust seasoning. Serve with chopped parsley sprinkled on top.