50 ways to love your liver (actually just one) Tuscan chicken liver crostini

Ragazzi,  Ananlena is sure that at least some of you remember Paul Simon's song "50 ways to leave your lover."  Well, the title, and the structure of the song, left it open to innumerable parodies, one of which was "50 ways to love your liver."  Indeed, most of us, Annalena included, need to have more ways to love liver - not necessarily our own of course, but it is a rare person who admits to liking to eat liver.  Annalena confesses to being amongst the guilty, unless of course the liver in question is foie gras, which almost seems to not be liver, but more like duck or goose butter.    As a ragazzo, Annalena was forced to eat liver once or twice a month.  It was NOT a good thing.  Indeed, this may very well be where she developed her lifelong love of onions and bacon, for when Nana served liver (inevitably calves and, unfortunately, inevitably not cooked well), she would serve it with onions and bacon.   When Annalena would hand in her clean plate, Nana did not realize at first that the liver was going into the dog, Bubbles, bowl  (Bubbles, or any of Annalena's other canine friends, had no problem with liver).  Henceforth, Annalena would be served liver without the accompaniments, and only get them after her plate, containing only liver, was returned.

So, when preparing for Italy, Annalena did in fact consider that liver is a favorite of Italians, in many ways.  It is in fact a staple of Venetian cooking  (fegato alla Venezia is calves' liver in a sweet and sour sauce, with onions agrodolce), she sighed and wondered what she would do.  Her "compromise," if you could call it that, was to agree and to try to eat chicken liver, but to put her not insubstantial food down at that.  It was, perhaps, Annalena's parallel to the Guyman's pledge to "step out of his comfort zone," which he did admirably, in Italy).  Fegato di pollo?  Si.  Fegato di bue?  No.  And there we stand.

Well,  it was a good thing, for having eaten the staple of  Tuscan food,  involving chicken liver, and having many names,  Annalena was enchanted.  In fact, she has made it a point to eat it several times since returning home.  And she is going to present a version to you here, ragazzi.  If you are adamantly opposed to liver, well "pass me by," as the song goes.  If, however, you are willing to give the thing a try, this is how to go.   There is no hiding the fact that it is liver, but it is much milder than you may think (if you buy good materials), and there are ways, which Annalena will elaborate, on how to "mask" the strong, almost metallic flavor, a bit.

COMINCIAMO.  You start with one pound of chicken livers.  Now, yet another comment here. Annalena remembers, not that long ago, when chicken liver was about 1.50 a pound.  Perhaps as a measure of how quality has improved (she would like to think), the free range chicken livers Annalena bought cost 10.00 a pound.  So, be prepared, ragazzi, if you are looking for the good stuff.   You will also need about half an onion, chopped,  and an equal amount of chopped parsley.  Also, two cloves of garlic, chopped.   Have also some olive oil on hand.  A couple of salted anchovies, or anchovies under oil (but NOT the stuff in cans, and NOT sardines),  which you will chop up (Annalena assures you  that you will not taste fish in this preparation.  The anchovies are there for "backbone.").  Have a sweet wine available .  Vin santo if you are going truly Tuscan, or sherry if that's what you have or, as Annalena had, a sweet California dessert wine.  About a third of a cup, please.    You will also need those wonderful flower buds from Sicily, capers.  Two tablespoons of them.  Put them under water, and let them soak, while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.    When you are ready to use them as elaborated below, drain them  and chop them.

Now, let us cook.  First, the only difficult part.  Chicken liver can be, well, gross.  You will find fat bits, perhaps bits of veins and even bile tissue (it is green).  Get your scissor, bite the bullet and cut it away and get it out of your sight.  Wash your hands, dry them, and proceed.

Put a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a pan, and add the parsley, the onion and the garlic.  Keep the heat low, and when the veggies soften, add the chopped anchovies.  Stir, and in a few seconds, you won't see them anymore.  Now, add the livers, and turn up the heat a bit.  Don't stir for a few minutes, as they brown.  Then turn them, and keep turning them, perhaps every minute or so.  While you are doing this, press on them with a fork, gently, to break them up as much as you can.   Eventually, this is going to be a paste or puree.   When the livers have cooked to the point where, there is a bit of rose color in their center, but they are otherwise brown, move your face away, and add the sweet wine.  Stir, and keep on mashing.  When the liquid has evaporated, add a bit of lemon peel, and taste for salt and pepper and adjust. 

Now, you may do a couple of things.  Turn off the heat, and if you feel like being truly old fashioned and feel strong, continue to mash them until you have something of a desired consistency.  Or, you may pull out your food mill, put a coarse filter in it, and get to work.  Or, go modern and pulse it in the food processor, which is what Annalena did.  If you like this a little looser, then you can add some olive oil, or some sweet wine .  If you are concerned about the taste (which mellows on standing, by the way), some cream is not unacceptable. 

But now, you have it.  You serve this on toasted bread, preferably the saltless bread of Tuscany (which is really quite good when you have it well made, or with something as savory and strong as this).   If you are still rather uncertain about the strong flavor, fall back on your traditional pairings with liver:  some bacon on top, or pancetta, or some onion jam, or even both.  Some put crumbled hard boiled egg yolk on them, but Annalena steadfastedly refuses to each such things.

Now, as to the many names.  You all know "crostini," yes?  Of course you do.  Well, Annalena learned that, in Tuscany, the word for crostini, is "fettunte," except when it's not

See, some Tuscans say that it is a crostino, when there's no olive oil on the bread, and fettunta when there is. Others only use fettunta, but Annalena feels that the usage is dying out.    And sticking just with crostini, for a minute, they are called  "crostini di fegato di pollo," or, in the way Italians have, of taking a long term and shortening it and making it figurative  "crostini neri," or black crostini.   

Do not ask Annalena why, she knows not.  

Again, every time she has had these, the texture has been different:  smooth and velvety and almost liquid, in a trattoria where Annalena ate the finest bowl of tripe of her life; sturdy and stiff, and good, in a fancy Florentine restaurant, and in between, at a hotel function, in Venice.  Choose your texture.

Please try these.  To step away from Italy for a minute and switch to Mexican, the wonderful, albeit idiosyncratic chef Diana Kennedy once said  "you have to try everything once.  Even if you spit it out you have to put it in your mouth once."    Keep this in mind, for cooking and.... other things. 

No more ideas on the  horizon, ragazzi, but you know Annalena.  The minute she has something that strikes her fancy that she wishes to share with her carissimi, you will hear of it. It may be tomorrow, it may be next week, but Annalena shall be back.