One of America's Favorites - Liver and Onions

Fried pork livers and onions

Liver and onions is a traditional English dish. The main ingredients are slices of liver (usually pork, beef or, in the United Kingdom, lamb) and onions; onion is favored as an accompaniment to liver as the flavor of onion "cuts" the somewhat metallic flavor of liver, which can be off-putting to some eaters. The liver and the onions are usually fried or cooked together, but sometimes they may be fried separately and mixed together afterwards. The liver is often cut in fine slices, but it also may be diced.



Liver and onions is widely eaten in the UK and in Germany, where it is usually eaten along with boiled or mashed potatoes. Calf's or lamb's liver are the usual choices in the UK and is often accompanied by fried bacon.

In the French traditional recipe the liver is fried with butter and lard. In Catalan cuisine olive oil is used, instead of butter, and fried garlic is added to the mixture. In Italian cuisine, the fegato alla Veneziana recipe includes a dash of red wine or vinegar and the fegato alla Romana a dash of white wine and is cooked in lard.

In the USA, liver and onions as a dish once enjoyed widespread popularity and could usually be found at family diners and American home-style restaurants. This meal is currently more common to

Chicken livers and onions

the cuisines of the southern and upper midwestern style foods.

Beef liver and onions is still widely popular in Latin America (Spanish: hígado (de res) encebollado, Portuguese: fígado (bovino) acebolado), where it is often eaten along with tortillas or rice.

In Brazil (where tortillas are unknown to the vast majority), though, the traditional recipe always calls for potatoes, most commonly puréed or as home fries, or some other underground-growing starchy vegetable. The liver is rubbed – but not fried – in plenty of good quality olive oil before being fried in the fat/oil of the cook's preference, generally vegetable oil. After the onions are fried together with the liver's reduced stock, rice, other vegetables, fried garlic and other staples (such as sweet corn, peas or lentils) might be added to the frying pan in order for their sautéing, though white rice is the preferred option. It is generally soaked with the blood/stock draining from the liver that is taken out of the frying pan somewhere between rare and medium for the frying of the onion.

People who prefer the rare version make cuts perpendicular to the edges of the steak that penetrate most but not the whole of it that are done when the steak is thick enough to remain too rare in the center, but too cooked in the outside.