CHOPPED LIVER

1 lb Chicken livers
1 lg Onion
2 Garlic cloves
3 T Schmaltz (chicken fat;-see note below)
3 Eggs, hard-boiled

Melt the schmaltz in a large frying pan.
Sauté the onions and garlic in the schmaltz until the onions
are tender.
Add the chicken livers and sauté until done.
(Livers are done when they are no longer red or pink on the
inside.) Chop the cooked livers and onions, along with the
hard boiled eggs. Use a cleaver (You can get a nice one in
Chinatown.) and do not chop them too finely.
Season with a little salt and add more melted schmaltz if
dry. My mom would deep fry an extra chopped onion till it
was nice and crunchy, and use that to garnish the dish.

Schmaltz = melted chicken fat.
Here's how you can make some:

Get some chicken fat (separate it whenever you cook a
chicken or you can ask your butcher.)
Put the fat in a frying pan and fry on a low heat stirring
the pieces to keep them from sticking. The liquid you get is
the schmaltz. Refrigerate until you use it (It's kind of
like a chicken lard.) The hard chunks left are called griven
(or chicken cracklings,) and they are a very tasty snack.
In order that your griven come out even tastier, make sure
that when you cut off the fat, you include a little bit of
meat. This of course is another Jewish recipe.
(you knew that, did't you?)

T = tablespoon


Copyright © 2006 by Ernest Samuel Leibovitz