Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities

Going to keep an eye on my intake of fish bait - I mean liver

When you accuse your new wife of serving you fish bait you’re taking your life in your own hands unless you talk fast.

That’s the situation I found myself in early in my nearly 40 years of marriage to my sweet wife. I was obviously able to explain myself quickly enough and adequately enough to live and stay married.

I had never had beef liver before I got married. We had beef in our freezer growing up and we always had liver packages that came back from the processing plant but we never ate that stuff. We threw it in the ice chest when we went to the lake and we baited our trotlines with the bloody stuff.

My wife’s family regularly had liver and onions and they’d never used it for fish bait. I pride myself on trying anything once and I found that liver and onions when prepared well is pretty good stuff. I even order in restaurants.

As my sister and I were unloading our most recent load of home-grown (by my niece’s family) beef when we got down to the liver she asked if I wanted it and I said we sure did. She gave me a strange look and quickly gifted me with her liver and another family’s portion. I’m pretty sure we ended up with more than a full calf liver in our freezer.

I got home the other night and my wife put in a request for liver and onions. I got it thawed but would have liked to had more time to soak it in milk but we made due. It’s definitely messy and time consuming to fix but we sure love the stuff. Not so sure I’m up for a night crawler noodle bowl, however.

While we never ate beef liver we did eat chicken livers and gizzards, according to my mom. I remember those things, especially the gizzards, being pretty chewy.

I’ve saved the heart from deer and elk and that’s pretty good stuff too. I’ve also saved goose organs and made what I called pate. Reviews on that were a bit mixed.

I’ve got to say that dove breasts remind me a lot of organ meat because it is so dark and rich.

One beef liver and onion recipe I read last week said that liver is one of the most dense foods you will come across. They said that like it was a good thing but with a tendency toward gout I’ll probably watch my intake of fish bait.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

[email protected]

 
 
Rendered 03/28/2024 21:37