Chopped Liver

Chopped liver is often served as a first course at holiday meals in Jewish homes.

I prepare it with a lot of eggs, and a lot of fried onions; that is the only way I like it; you can vary the amount of eggs and onions you use, but in my opinion, the more the better!

I love this version of chopped liver served on a piece of matza or a cracker; YUMMY.

I always prepare chopped liver in a meat grinder; this creates a wonderful consistency. Savta Rivka used to patiently make it in a hand cranked meat grinder. Wanting to create exactly the same texture as she did, I searched in Poland, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary for just such an old fashioned meat grinder. I did manage to find such meat grinders in Poland and in the Czech Republic, and I excitedly shlepped them home, but they were really of inferior quality, and even before using, I realized that this is not going to work!

So, I use the meat grinder attachment on my Kenwood mixer – and the results are great. How silly it was to buy those inferior quality meat grinders on my trips to Poland, and the Czech Republic, when all along, since 1970, I had the electric meat grinding attachment sitting in the kitchen cabinet.

Ingredients:

• half a kilo (1 pound) chicken livers
• a few large onions, chopped finely
• approximately 10-12 eggs, boiled.
• canola oil
• salt and pepper

Preparation:

1. Broil the chicken livers under the oven grill, till all the blood etc is removed.
2. Chop a few large onions, and fry in some canola oil till nicely browned.
3. To the frying onions, add the broiled chicken livers and continue frying a little bit.
4. Boil the 10-12 eggs, and then let stand in cold water, till cool.
5. Peel the eggs when they are boiled and cooled.
6. Prepare the meat grinder. Start putting in the fried chicken livers one by one, together with most of the fried onions (leaving some of the fried onions aside to use later as decoration); then grind the boiled and cooled eggs, one by one (if you want, you can leave one egg unground, and grate it later on over the prepared chopped liver, also for decoration).
7. When all the ingredients are ground up, mix in large bowl. Add salt and pepper and if necessary, a bit of canola oil, and mix.
8. Taste and adjust seasoning.
9. When serving, place in serving dish, grate the reserved hard boiled egg over that, and then place the reserved fried onion over the grated egg.
10. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Serve.